Lord Hermer said courts across the country sentence people “to very long periods in prison for sexual offences”.
“We are determined to make sure that the criminal justice system works for victims.”
The attorney general acts as the chief legal adviser to the government and the Crown as well as overseeing the Law Officers’ Departments.
Under the Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) scheme, a member of the public can go to a government webpage and ask the attorney general to look at the outcome.
If the attorney general and expert lawyers agree that the sentence is out of line with normal expectations for such a crime, they send the case to the Court of Appeal.
There, three of the most senior judges in England and Wales will hear arguments about whether the sentence was too short or appropriate, taking into account detailed guidelines to trial judges and the specific circumstances of the case.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch previously posted on X that the three boys received “no punishment at all”.
Reform UK’s treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick also previously condemned the sentence, telling the BBC: “It can never be right that a young person kills someone or rapes someone and they do not go to jail.”