'Tougher community punishments' plannned

Tougher community punishments and a restriction on the use of suspended sentences are expected to be among a raft of new measures being announced by the Ministry of Justice today.

Ministers want courts to make greater use of community punishments for non-violent offences to ensure there are enough prison places for the most serious and dangerous offenders.

Under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill there will be an extension in the use of conditional cautions for young offenders and the introduction of a new Youth Rehabilitation Order, both designed to keep young people out of jail.

A government source said the focus of the legislation was on the "smart use of prison".

"We will focus our resources where they are most effective and ensure we can properly protect the public from dangerous individuals, rehabilitate offenders and reduce re-offending through restricting the use of suspended sentence orders," she said.

"We will ensure there are prison places for those that ought to be there and that the courts have tough community sentences at their disposal to deal with less serious non-violent offences."

Last week it emerged that thousands of criminals could be released up to 18 days early to ease prison overcrowding under measures announced by the Government.

The "temporary" move could apply to any offender sentenced to less than four years, Justice Secretary Lord Falconer said.

Under today's new Bill there will also be tougher sentences for people caught in possession of extreme pornography and police will be given greater powers to tackle anti-social behaviour "at its roots", including the authority to close premises where there is a particular problem.

Shadow home affairs minister Edward Garnier said: "The Government is being disingenuous in the extreme if it is trying to spin that reducing the amount of suspended sentences will lead to less people going to jail.

"The choice facing magistrates is custody - whether it be now or later - or community sentences. If you take away the option of custody later, in most cases, it will be replaced with custody now.

"As for supposed tougher community sentences we've heard this all before. Community sentences can work but only if they are rigorously enforced.

"Under this government this has not happened. Reoffending rates for non-custodial sentences exceed those of custodial sentences.

"We can see the prison service is completely overstretched and unable to cope with the influx of prisoners but so, again due to this government's abject failure, is the probation service and Labour should not run away from that fact."

Details of the Bill will be published later today.

Copyright Press Association 2007

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