CAUSING death by dangerous driving will attract a longer maximum prison sentence – 20 years instead of 14 – under the Sentencing Bill being brought forward by Alliance justice minister Naomi Long.

Other serious offences could attract longer sentences under the Bill and a separate review of sentencing policy launched last month.

But for lesser crimes, the minister wants alternatives to custody, as short spells in prison are expensive and frequently pointless.

The subject of driving highlights an option that has been strangely overlooked: disqualification as a stand-alone punishment, for any offence – two years off the road instead of three months in jail for theft, for example.

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A law allowing courts here to do this was passed in 2008 as part of a general Justice Act. However, it requires an order from the secretary of state to bring it into effect and the order has never been issued.

The devolution of justice in 2010 added some complexity, as Stormont would now have to ask the secretary of state to intervene.

But that need not be an obstacle: other parts of the same law were activated after 2010.

Without it, all of the 3,000-plus disqualifications every year in Northern Ireland are always related to a driving offence.

Disqualification is often part of a sentence that includes fines or custody and it is usually seen as the less serious part, yet for many people losing a licence is far worse than a fine.

There is also strong evidence that taking persistent offenders off the road prevents a wide range of criminality, delivering effective punishment and public protection. Many criminals drive to ‘work’, just like the rest of us.

In England and Wales, courts have been able to use disqualification as a stand-alone punishment for any offence since 1997.

Conservative and Labour governments have been keen for this power to be used, promoting and enhancing it with new legislation, right up to the present day.

Ministers have been particularly interested in disqualification as an alternative to short custodial sentences for non-payment of fines.

But the judiciary remains uncomfortable with the concept and has restricted its use to crimes where a vehicle was involved, such as transporting stolen goods.

This restriction has been adopted by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales, whose guidelines are generally followed by the courts in Northern Ireland, so the same view would almost certainly apply here if our 2008 law was activated.

Judges may have been put off by a mixed record in the United States, where courts have long had the same power.

Its use there took off in the late 1980s when it became the standard punishment for non-payment of fines and child maintenance.

In 1991, the federal government ordered mandatory disqualification for all drug offences, threatening to cut off roads funding for any state that disobeyed.

This eventually came to be seen as counterproductive because it trapped people in a cycle of poverty – it is hard to earn money in America without a car.

In the past five years, 25 states have abolished disqualification for debt-related offences.

Another five have ended automatic disqualification for drug offences where no vehicle was involved, also citing the poverty trap.

The United States is an unusually car-dependent society, with harsh and capricious courts by western standards, so it is not surprising it might have taken this idea too far.

Germany provides a more inspiring model.

It makes extensive use of driving bans as a stand-alone punishment and has no issue declaring this is to be about deliberately inconveniencing offenders in a car-dependent society.

However, it targets bans at people who could afford a fine and would not therefore by much punished by it. Loss of mobility is a practical and social sanction no wallet can wave away.

Driving bans are also seen in Germany as an alternative to short custodial sentences, but their true attraction is as an alternative to suspended sentences, which are barely punishment at all.

Suspended sentences are very common in Germany and almost universal for sentences of up to six months, so a ban from the autobahn can be the only real justice a court feels it can deliver.

Courts here might often feel the same, had they the freedom to do so.

The necessary law is still sitting on the statute books, waiting to be switched on.

Our judiciary chooses to follow the sentencing guidelines in England and Wales but it can devise its own.

It is worth giving some consideration.

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