7 December 2010 Last updated at 12:17Ken Clarke to unveil prison sentencing reform proposals
Ken Clarke: "Serious knife crimes will get serious prison sentences, but we're not setting absolute tariffs"
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Ken Clarke has promised to end the "remorseless rise" in prisoner numbers by tackling the causes of reoffending.
The justice secretary said there would be extra help to deal with inmates' drug and alcohol addiction and greater emphasis on treating mental illness.
A Green Paper, to be unveiled later, will put the emphasis on making prisons in England and Wales more purposeful and toughening up community sentences.
Mr Clarke said he hoped to cut the 85,000 inmate population by 3,000.
The reforms are driven by a need to reduce the £4bn prison and probation budget by 20% over four years.
Mr Clarke told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We need to get on with rehabilitating prisoners."
He added: "It will stop the remorseless rise, the huge increase in the number of people in prison...
"Some of my critics just say we should put more and more people in prison for longer and longer. I don't think that's the best way of protecting society."
Knife pledge droppedMr Clarke also said: "I think the prison system is not doing some of the things it's meant to do. That's stopping us preventing the rise of a criminal under-class who commit more crime when they are out."
The justice secretary said the system currently did too little to treat inmates with drink and drug problems and mental illness, and failed to prepare those released from prison for a productive later life.
In the Green Paper, the government is expected to propose measures to restrict the use of indeterminate sentences, extend the use of bail for suspects and give greater sentence reductions for defendants who plead guilty early.
Continue reading the main storyPLAN TO CUT PRISON POPULATION
- Halve sentence for those who admit crime at police station
- Pay more foreign national prisoners to leave
- Faster risk assessments to release some indeterminate sentence prisoners
- Stop remanding criminals unlikely to be jailed after trial
- Recall only those who commit serious breach of release licence
- More drug offenders and mentally ill into treatment
BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said the key reform would be to make community sentences a more credible alternative to custody.
Mr Clarke believes unpaid work schemes undertaken by offenders should be more punitive, with activities becoming more physical and intense.
Sue Hall, chair of the Probation Chiefs Association, said: "The best way to protect the public and prevent the next victim is to focus on rehabilitating offenders. We know this works and will break the cycle of reoffending for many of the 85,000 people in prison now.
"The constant criticism of community penalties not being punitive enough from some quarters belies the good evidence and our daily experience of working with offenders that they work for many.
"The reality is that straight punishment in prison may make the public feel better but it doesn't work in relation to reoffending."
Plans in the Conservative manifesto for prisoners to "earn" their release, as part of a so-called "Min-Max" sentencing regime, have been scrapped, as has the pledge that anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect a jail term.
Asked by BBC political editor Nick Robinson on Monday whether people caught carrying knives could expect a lesser punishment, Mr Clarke said: "Anybody who is guilty of serious knife crime will go to prison but I'm not in favour of absolute rules.
"I'm in favour of actually allowing judges to see how nasty the offender is, see what the offence was, see what the best way of protecting the public from him is."
In the Conservative election manifesto, the party said four out of five people convicted of a knife crime did not go to prison and they would send a "serious, unambiguous message that carrying a knife is totally unacceptable".
The document said: "We will make it clear that anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect to face a prison sentence."
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Tuesday, 7 December 2010
BBC News - Ken Clarke to unveil prison sentencing reform proposals
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