ONE CRIMINAL HAS BEEN JAILED 198 TIMES
UK (DAILY MAIL), 23 MAY 2019 - A single criminal has been sentenced to almost 200 jail terms in their life, with all of them being for less than six months each, according to new figures.
The charity Revolving Doors submitted a freedom of information request which revealed that the criminal had the most prison sentences under six months in England and Wales, at 198.
The revelation has led to renewed calls to overhaul the use of short sentences in the justice system.
Since 2017, 339 people were given 20 or more short prison terms, while 20 people were given 50 or more.
Around 82 per cent of people who were convicted of theft and given less than six months in prison were convicted again within a year of release, an analysis by the charity discovered.
Earlier this year, the Justice Secretary declared that prison is not working for thousands of criminals, as he set out the case for scrapping short jail sentences.
The charity’s chief executive, Christina Marriott, told the Guardian: ‘To give people another short prison sentence, sometimes for the 50th or 100th time, is evidentially short-sighted.