Do not go to jail?

There is a problem at the heart of our criminal justice system - we are locking up too many people - proportionately the highest numbers in Western Europe - and there just isn't room. 11,000 prisoners have been released early in the last five months as a coping strategy.

Lord Carter's review - to be reported to Parliament this afternoon - is expected to recommend: offenders who would normally be given short custodial sentences of less than 6 months to go to prison only if there is sufficient space; greater use of community sentences to ease overcrowding and the limiting of indeterminate prison sentences introduced 4 years ago.

There's also a suggestion it will recommend building more prisons - financed by selling off inner city jails for redevelopment.

Most controversial though will be the suggestion that a sentence should be determined not by the crime - but by how full our prisons are at a particular time. It's an idea put forward five years ago by the then Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf, ignored by the Government then.

Since then, overcrowding has got even worse. Last Friday the total number in jail in the UK was 81,000 - the vast majority held in prison, the vast majority male.

Back in 1993, the number was 41,600. - by 2014, the projected prison population will reportedly be anywhere between 88,800 and 101,900.

The government is expected to approve most of Lord Carter's recommendations - although it will stress heavily that jail is still the only option for violent and dangerous criminals.

Share this article

Send this article to a friend »

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon

What are these?