Sentencing guidelines for use in magistrates’ courts

You will find on these pages all the sentencing guidelines and other materials magistrates need when sentencing offenders in court. You can search for guidelines on the magistrates’ court sentencing guidelines search page (for quick access from anywhere in the site, select the magnifying glass on the left-hand menu). The overarching guidelines, explanatory materials and calculators, as well as other useful documents and links, are also available on the left-hand menu

Sentencing guidelines app for use offline

If you do not have access to wifi, the magistrates’ court sentencing guidelines (MCSG) are also available as an app. You can download the MCSG app to your own iPad free of charge from the App Store.

Updates

When we publish new guidelines, we flag changes on the MCSG updates page of this website and in the app. New guidelines are added to the list of offences in purple to clearly distinguish between those guidelines that have yet to come into force and those already in force. New guidelines are automatically added to the MCSG app.

Help and support

If there is additional material you need, or you have trouble finding something, please let us know by emailing MCSGsupport@sentencingcouncil.gov.uk. We aim to respond to emails within 24 hours. If you need help urgently, please call 020 7071 5793. This site will continue to grow and have new content and tools added. If you have suggestions of things that would be useful or that you need when sentencing, please get in touch.