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Offender Management Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Cutting crime, ensuring justice for victims and preventing reoffending is at the heart of the Home Office’s day-to-day work, but our work must do more than simply meet targets or provide jobs for people. It must be the route to security and opportunity for individuals, communities and our whole society. Preventing crime is but one part of that, but it is an essential part, and this Government have had considerable success: crime is down by more than a third in a decade. That is the result of our focus on tackling crime on the one hand and the causes of crime on the other. In tackling crime, we have put more police on the streets than ever before and we have gradually introduced neighbourhood policing teams. We have also extended the powers available against antisocial behaviour and we have jailed dangerous offenders for longer for the protection of the rest of society. However, we have accompanied that by tackling the causes of crime, as we promised to do, including, among other elements, mass unemployment, social deprivation, lack of education and poverty. Tackling crime and its causes has led to a 35 per cent. reduction in crime during the lifetime of this Government—as opposed, of course, to a 100 per cent. increase in crime in the final years of the last Government. Central to this has to be penal policy, of which prisons are of course an essential part. They protect the public, provide punishment and act as a deterrent, but they must also be the start of a process of rehabilitation. That process ought to be a continuum, which is why the supervision of offenders in the community after they leave jail is so important. This must be aimed ultimately at reducing crime and protecting the public through reducing reoffending.