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Prison Population

As my hon. Friend knows, under the 2003 Act there are 12 community-based sentences that we can use, including alcohol treatment, home detention curfews, measures related to drug treatment and other sentences. I need to ensure that we expand the public understanding of the benefit of those schemes. They are tough schemes that prevent reoffending, often much more effectively than does prison. As I am trying to do, I need to visit the probation service, sentencers and the Prison Service and promote the idea that community sentencing has a value. In many cases, particularly for low sentences, it is much better at reducing reoffending and it makes community pay-back visible to people in the community. I want to ensure that we promote the benefits of community sentences both to the offender and to the community, for the simple reason that they prevent reoffending. That means, ultimately, that somebody’s garden shed will not have been broken into; somebody will not have been robbed on the street or mugged; and that some event will not have happened that would have caused crime to rise. I support the general drift of the approach that I think my hon. Friend would wish me to take.