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BRITAIN-POLITICS-PRISON
UK govt mulls limiting jail sentences of six months or less
LONDON, Jan 12, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The British government is considering
scrapping jail sentences of six months or less for most crimes in a bid to
reduce reoffending and ease pressure on the system, the prisons minister said
on Saturday.
The move could see tens of thousands of people convicted of non-violent or
non-sexual crimes, such as burglary and shoplifting, spared jail under the
plan, Rory Stewart told The Daily Telegraph.
In an interview with the newspaper’s magazine, he said that short jail
terms were “long enough to damage you and not long enough to heal you.
“You bring somebody in for three or four weeks, they lose their house,
their job, their family, their reputation.
“They come (into prison), they meet a lot of interesting characters and
then you whap them on to the streets again,” he said.
“The public are safer if we have a good community sentence… and it will
relieve a lot of pressure on prisons.”
The change would mirror 2010 reforms in Scotland, where judges are now
guided by a legal presumption against custodial sentences of less than three
months.
Reoffending rates there have since fallen to their lowest levels for
nearly two decades, and the Scottish government is considering extending it
to less than a year.
Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust, told the Telegraph that
government ministers in London “should be congratulated for having the
political courage to start the debate”.
England and Wales’s prison population has doubled since the early 1990s to
now stand at more than 80,000 inmates, official figures show.
Meanwhile more than half of the 86,275 offenders sentenced to immediate
custody in 2017 were given sentences of six months or less.
The country’s prisons are considered in a state of crisis, with violence
and drug use on the rise.
Stewart made the eye-catchingly bold pledge last August to resign if he
was not able to reform its 10 worst jails within a year.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman confirmed that it was “exploring potential
alternatives” to prisons for some crimes.
“As we have said previously, short sentences are too often ineffective,
provide little opportunity to rehabilitate offenders and lead to unacceptably
high rates of reoffending,” he said.
“But this work is ongoing and we have reached no conclusions at this
time.”
BSS/AFP/ARS/1754 hrs