YABU - why are people obsessed with a criminal "facing justice" by attending their sentencing?
It's all well and good saying "make them go" but how do you think that works in practice? Firstly you have the safety of the prison and court employees to consider - if a prisoner knows they're about to be dragged from their cell to be given a life sentence in front of a packed courtroom even if they don't want to be there then I doubt they're going to be sitting politely waiting, wearing their Sunday best and acquiescing to the officers request to put their handcuffs on nicely ...
Even the smallest and slightest prisoner can make it impossible to physically manhandle them into court if they don't want to be there (and they can't do anything that will deliberately injure the prisoner as that would be just as unlawful as any other crime) - and if the rules apply to them then they also apply to the 20st 6ft brick shit house gang member that has just been convicted of GBH ... would you want to have to drag him into court?
Not only would it be the safety aspect but also the disruption ... Firstly if they're going to shout/scream/cause a scene how do you plan to ensure the sentencing is carried out? You can't remove them from the court room (as that's exactly what they want) but if they're causing such a disturbance that the sentencing can't be concluded then what do you do?
The courts are already backlogged, if a sentencing hearing is dragged out for hours because a prisoner has refused to come out of their cell, is wearing no clothes as they refused to get dressed and resisted all attempts to put clothes on them, refused to get in the prison van, resisted going into the cell at the court, had to be physically dragged into the courtroom and then screamed and attacked the officers that are keeping them in the dock so that the judge cannot be heard to pass judgement ... How is that going to help things?
That's before you get into the fact that there are more than likely going to be victims families wanting to see justice done, how distressing is it going to be for them to have to experience that? Yes they might want to see the perpetrator brought to justice but having it descend into massive chaos will not give them any kind of closure, it's probably going to cause more distress.
Then there's the arguments of "Add time on if they won't go!" ... If you're going down for life then what does the threat of "another 5 years" actually achieve? Nmand how are you going to apply the "added time" - will it be a set X years or will it be proportional to their sentence? Because otherwise you get people with short sentences refusing to go to court ending up spending more time in prison because they used their legal right not to attend their sentencing than for the crime they committed... which would be a massive legal minefield and any prisoner who challenged it would have a field day in the courts.
They're getting sentenced whether they are in court or not, why does it matter if they're physically present? If anything I think it's more powerful that the wheels of justice will continue turning whether or not they are there, and means they don't get to have their final "moment in the spotlight", the focus can be on their crime and the fact justice has been done.