Criminals sentenced to less than 12 months will NOT go to prison under radical new plans to ease overcrowding
CRIMINALS sentenced to less than 12 months will not go to prison under radical new proposals.
Ministers were accused of being ‘soft on crime’ today as lower level offenders will serve time in the community rather than behind bars.
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk unveiled the plans in a bid to overhaul sentencing and ease overcrowding in jails.
The prison population is near capacity at 88,225 – costing taxpayers £47,000 a year.
Mr Chalk said: “We are doubling the number of GPS tags available to the court to ensure that offenders can be monitored to track that they are going to work.
“And also to ensure their freedom is curtailed in the evenings and weekends with robust curfews of up to 20 hours a day.”
The Justice Secretary set out plans for judges to send low-level criminals into the community rather than locking them up.
Their punishment will include removing graffiti and cleaning up neighbourhoods.
Shadow Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “Let’s be clear what the public needs to know: that today, an offender, including potentially a sex offender, can go to court, and be found guilty by a jury.
“But instead of being locked up behind bars where they belong, the inaction of this chaotic Conservative government means that they can walk free.”
An early release scheme will also see lags released 18 days early for anyone serving a sentence of less than four years.
The plan is similar to a scheme set up by Labour while in government in 2010, which allowed 50,000 offenders to go free before their sentence reached the half-way point.
However, Mr Chalk added that rapists and those on other serious sexual offenders will serve the whole of their jail term inside.
He delivered plans for £400 million to be spent on the prison estate to help build 800 new cells.
There will also be £30 million to buy land to build new jails.
Plans also include allowing some of the inmates on Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences who are still in jail beyond the length of their sentence to be released.