TOO MANY IN PRISON, SAY MPS

A powerful House of Commons committee yesterday called on courts to
lock up fewer criminals and make greater use of community sentencing
to relieve pressure on Britain's "full to bursting" prisons.

The Home Affairs Select Committee said the Government should set up
trials using weekend sentences, where offenders go to work during the
week and are jailed only on Saturday and Sunday, in order to reduce
the burden on prisons.

The MPs also called for greater use of suspended sentences and backed
government plans to extend home curfew initiatives where offenders are
made to wear electronic tags.

The report was heralded by penal reformers as the "death knell" for
the culture of tough sentencing policy which has seen the jail
population rise by 50 per cent in the past five years to 65,000. The
figure is expected to grow to 82,000 by 2005 - despite a falling crime
rate.

Paul Cavadino, of the National Association for the Care and
Rehabilitation of Offenders, said: "It is the clearest all-party
statement for several years of the futility of jailing more and more
offenders in increasingly overstretched prisons. It reflects a
striking sea-change in the political consensus away from the idea that
locking up more offenders holds the answer to crime problems."

But the report was criticised by the Police Superintendents'
Association of England and Wales which said the bulging prisons were
the reason for the fall in crime. The president, Chief Superintendent
Peter Gammon, said: "The fact is prison works. That has been proved
over the last five years. Yes, on the face of it prison is expensive,
costing UKP1.8bn a year, but so is crime which costs . as much as
UKP30bn a year," he said.

The Commons report states that according to Sir David Ramsbotham, the
chief inspector of prisons, about 30 per cent of adult prisoners
should not be in jail. In addition, about 70 per cent of the women and
40 per cent of young prisoners did not need to be jailed.

The committee chairman, Chris Mullin MP, said: "There are offenders
for whom prison is the only appropriate penalty, but there are many
people currently sentenced to imprisonment who could be dealt with
more effectively and at far less expense by a non-custodial sentence."

MPs said there was evidence that the best forms of community sentence
were more effective in stopping criminals repeating their offences and
were cheaper. They said the bill for an average prison sentence was
UKP24,271 compared with UKP1,770-3,500 for a community sentence,
depending on the type of order.

The committee was also critical of probation officers for only taking
action against offenders who breach their community sentences in 28
per cent of cases.

But Harry Fletcher, of the National Association of Probation Officers,
said: "The number of probation officers in post has fallen by 10 per
cent since 1995. During the same period court orders have grown by 29
per cent. Improving standards is not sustainable without sufficient
staff."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry