Criminal justice bill less reliant on prison
Bill aims to reduce prison overcrowding
Tuesday, 26, Jun 2007 12:00
More offenders should be punished in the community, freeing up prisons to deal with violent and serious offenders, the government is set to announce today.
The latest criminal justice bill will recommend more use of community punishments for non-violent offences and less reliance on suspended sentences.
A Ministry of Justice source told reporters the measure is intended to ensure there are sufficient prisons places to deal with dangerous offenders.
The criminal justice and immigration bill will also extend the use of conditional cautions for young offenders and create a new Youth Rehabilitation Order to reduce the number of young people in custody.
A government source said the bill was intended to promote the "smart use of prison".
She told reporters: "We will focus our resources where they are most effective and ensure we can properly protect the public from dangerous individuals, rehabilitate offenders and reduce re-offending through restricting the use of suspended sentence orders.
"We will ensure there are prison places for those that ought to be there and that the courts have tough community sentences at their disposal to deal with less serious non-violent offences."
Last week the Ministry of Justice was forced to announce thousands of prisoners would be released 18 days before the end of their sentence to ease prison overcrowding.
The Conservatives have attacked the proposed criminal justice bill.
Shadow home affairs minister Edward Garnier said restricting the use of suspended sentences would encourage courts to recommend custody immediately.
He continued: "As for supposed tougher community sentences we've heard this all before.
"Community sentences can work but only if they are rigorously enforced. Under this government this has not happened. Re-offending rates for non-custodial sentences exceed those of custodial sentences.
"We can see the prison service is completely overstretched and unable to cope with the influx of prisoners but so, again due to this government's abject failure, is the probation service and Labour should not run away from that fact."
The bill is also set to propose harsher sentences for people possessing "extreme pornography" and also powers to enable police to tackle the causes of anti-social behaviour.