---

Penal System

If we were able to rehabilitate offenders, we could reduce the prison population. We cannot rehabilitate them while prisons are so full, and I shall return to that point later. The early release scheme can only be, in the words of the Prison Officers Association, a short-term fix. The Government have admitted that 25,000 offenders will be released early in the next year, but they will reduce the prison population by only 1,200. At the current rate of incarceration, it is likely that prisons will fill up again and we will face a new crisis by the autumn. If the Government demur from that prediction, we would like to hear from them. As the Prison Officers Association has said, building new prisons"““should have been done years ago””." Last summer, in a BBC interview with Andrew Marr, the current Lord Chancellor said:"““I’ve never had a problem about building more prisons…I was one of the Home Secretaries who greatly increased the capacity of the prison service””." Clearly, that was nonsense, but he went on to say:"““I wish it were possible to deal with criminals outside prison, but most people who end up in prison go there because ""community punishments have failed. So it isn’t a difficulty for me about getting people into prison and keeping them there until they are better reformed.””" That was better. But then earlier this month there was an interesting front-page report in The Times, which stated:"““The Government will not be able to build its way out of the prison crisis, Jack Straw suggested yesterday. He indicated that the only way the pressure could be relieved was by sending fewer people to jail and using more non-custodial sentences…The Lord Chancellor…called for a ‘national conversation’ about the use of prison. He also spoke of the need to make community sentences more effective to build confidence and trust in non-custodial sentences.””" A year ago the Lord Chancellor said that he wanted to lock people up and that community sentences did not work; now he is saying that he wants to send fewer people to jail, have more community sentences, and have a conversation. So what is his current view? Is he going to be Judge Dredd or Mary Poppins? If he wants to build confidence in community sentencing, he has a very long way to go. Under the home detention curfew scheme that he introduced in 1999, more than 4,000 prisoners who were released early have reoffended, committing more than 7,000 crimes. More than 1,000 of those were violent offences, including one murder, 56 woundings and more than 700 assaults. Earlier this month, ““Panorama”” revealed serious flaws in the tagging of offenders. The public do not want a conversation with him. They want to feel safe. They want to walk home from work in the knowledge that they will not be mugged by somebody who should have been safely behind bars. They certainly do not want to be told that the answer is to weaken the sentencing of dangerous offenders.