No soft sentences to fix overcrowded jails, vows Minister
Only more effective rehabilitation to cut re-offending can reduce prison numbers in the long term, Ms Truss will say.
In her speech to the think tank in Westminster, the Justice Secretary will point out that the prison population has risen because judges are handing out longer sentences to criminals convicted of violence and sex crimes.
She will add: “More victims have the confidence in the criminal justice system to come forward.
“And it is happening because we are catching and convicting more violent offenders and giving them longer sentences that better reflect the seriousness of their crimes.
“This is the right thing for victims and the right thing for the British public.”
Ms Truss is to launch an outspoken attack on Labour’s shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti’s recent call for an end to the “authoritarian arms race” in sentencing.
The former civil liberties campaigner, given a shadow cabinet role by Labour’s hard-Left leader Jeremy Corbyn, ditched the party’s “tough on crime” slogan and criticised rising prison numbers.
“I don’t believe the sum of human wickedness has doubled in my adult lifetime,” Baroness Chakrabarti said at the end of last year. Ms Truss will say: “She blames a political arms race for the numbers in our jails.
“What has actually happened in Baroness Chakrabarti’s lifetime is that the criminal justice system has got better at catching and convicting criminals who have perpetrated some of the most appalling crimes imaginable.
“And sentence lengths now better reflect the severity of crimes like domestic violence, rape and child abuse.
“It’s not that the sum of human wickedness has doubled – it’s that we have driven that wickedness out from the shadows and put it where it belongs, behind bars.”
Ms Truss will cite official figures showing a 75 per cent increase in custodial sentences for violent offenders since 2000.
Over the same period, the number of sex offenders jailed has increased by 140 per cent and the average length of sentence for sex crimes has risen by 50 per cent.
Three out of five inmates are serving sentences for drug dealing, violence or sex crimes, she will say. And she will add: “We all agree it is desirable to have a lower prison population but it has to be for the right reasons.
“Public protection is paramount. Reductions by cap or quota, or by sweeping sentencing cuts are not a magic bullet, they are a dangerous attempt at a quick fix.”
She will promise to publish a Bill later this month which will “for the first time enshrine in law that reforming offenders is a key purpose of prison”.