50,000 offenders could avoid jail sentences

Justice committee’s plan to abolish terms of less than a year aims at easing ‘grave’ prison safety crisis

UP to 50,000 offenders could be spared jail under proposals by the justice committee of MPS to abolish prison sentences of under one year.

The MPS endorsed plans by David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, to scrap six-month sentences – but said he should go further, and “model the effects” of abolishing sentences under 12 months.

This would help ease the “enduring” safety crisis in prisons in England and Wales caused by a doubling in the jail population to 82,000 in the past two decades and enable more money to be spent on rehabilitating offenders, said the committee. They pointed out that reoffending by released prisoners cost the country £15billion a year. “

The scale of the prison population crisis is such that it requires a fresh and decisive response,” the MPS said.

The 50,000 currently jailed for under a year include almost 19,000 for theft, 6,000 for assaults, 4,000 for public order offences and 2,000 for drug offences, according to Ministry of Justice (MOJ) figures. Sex offences and violence would be exempted under Mr Gauke’s current plans.

The proposals follow similar moves in Scotland, where plans are already in place to introduce a “presumption” against custodial terms of under a year.

The proposals have, however, provoked a backlash from some Tory MPS, one of whom described the idea as stupid.

Research by Civitas suggested it would mean thousands of repeat offenders guilty of burglary, knife crimes and shoplifting could be spared jail.

Peter Cuthbertson, a crime researcher who has previously revealed the scale of serial offending, said the move’s backers were underestimating the crossover between violent and sex offenders who were also prolific in lower level crimes.

“Burglars avoiding prison means violent offenders avoiding prison, because it is the same criminals doing both,” he said.

The committee, however, warned that the current approach was unsustainable, saying there was a “grave and worsening” crisis over safety in prisons, which was unlikely to improve with the current prison population.

It accused the MOJ and Treasury of “crisis management” with assaults and self-harm at record levels, fuelled by a surge in the use of the zombie drug Spice in jails.

The MPS disputed claims by Rory Stewart, the prisons minister, of “green shoots”, saying they were not “borne out by the statistics.

They warned that Mr Stewart’s attempt to turn round 10 prisons, and to resign if they he had not done so within a year, could divert resources “at the expense of others in serious need”.

“All prisons should have the resources that they need to foster a safe and decent environment,” they added.

“We are now in the depths of an enduring crisis in prison safety and decency that has lasted five years and is taking significant additional investment to rectify, further diverting funds from essential rehabilitative initiatives that could stem or reverse the predicted growth.”

Jails were detaining 7,000 more inmates than they were certified to hold, while resources were being further stretched by increasing numbers of older prisoners serving longer sentences, said the MPS.

One in six adult prisoners (16 per cent) were over 50.

Six in 10 over 50s had a long-standing illness or disability.

The prison population is projected to increase by another 6,000 to 88,000 by March 2022.