AT LAST, COMMON SENSE ON PRISONS

To say that prison is not working is an understatement. The number of
people in jail in England and Wales hovers at record levels of around
75,000. Our overcrowded, and sometimes inhumane, institutions cannot
rehabilitate inmates, with the result that half the crime in the
country is carried out by ex-offenders. The Home Secretary's five-year
strategy for cutting reoffences and protecting the public makes a
welcome change from the overly punitive approach of many of his
predecessors. While dangerous criminals will get tough sentences,
others will be given rigorous, and visible, penalties in the
community. Jails, in Charles Clarke's plan, will no longer be full of
the mentally ill and women convicted of relatively minor offences.

His critics' demand - to build many more prisons instead - has never
sounded more hollow. This country jails more people than Libya,
Malaysia, Burma and all its western European counterparts. We lock up
twice as many people as the Scandinavians, yet no one is suggesting
that Britons are twice as bad as Swedes. But this is not just a
numbers game.

Mr Clarke's scheme to offer offenders adequate education and health
care, including drug treatment, reflects a care for decency as well as
the overriding need for public safety. The stumbling block is the
Treasury, which is unwilling to provide the initial investment needed
without proof of results. Gordon Brown should ignore this impossible
precondition and put his faith, as judges, prison reformers and many
victims have, in the Home Secretary's vision.

Reducing the huge burden on the taxpayer of jailing far too many
people must make economic sense. The Chancellor should embrace the
reforms for other reasons, too. Few government plans hold the key to a
better and more humane society. This one does.