Ca se propage sur le web : Fix ‘dire’ justice system to make sentence revamp work, peers tell Rishi Sunak

Sparing criminals jail sentences will not stop reoffending without fixing the “dire” criminal justice system, Lord Blunkett has warned Rishi Sunak.

The Prime Minister’s plans to punish low-level criminals such as burglars, thieves and drunk drivers with community sentences rather than putting them in overcrowded jails would fail unless there was a “rethink” to strengthen alternatives to prison, said Lord Blunkett, speaking on behalf of a committee of peers.

Writing for The Telegraph, the former Labour home secretary said the Lords justice and home affairs committee had found community sentences were currently falling “way short of their potential” for rehabilitating criminals.

He said that at present such punishments fail to tackle the causes of offending such as drugs, alcohol or mental ill health, while probation officers with “unmanageable” caseloads struggle to supervise offenders in the community.

Judges and magistrates felt they could not trust such ineffective punishments and had little option but to send offenders to prisons which were at breaking point and “fuelled” criminality rather than curing it before they were released, the report found.

As a result, courts issued 69,941 community sentences in 2022, half as many as the 158,586 recorded in 2012.

Jails are 99 per cent full and this summer the prison service came close to running out of space, forcing the Government to announce a series of measures to reduce the numbers, including a new policy against sending offenders to jail for less than 12 months.

‘Time for a rethink’

“Given the dire state of the criminal justice system more broadly, it is clearly time for a rethink,” said Lord Blunkett, who was home secretary from 2001 to 2004.

Lord Blunkett is understood to have discussed the proposals with Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary and a close ally of Sir Keir Starmer. She and the Labour leader are drawing up plans on how the party will tackle the prison overcrowding crisis.

Labour sources said the party was likely to adopt the Government’s short sentencing plans, adding that there was “little to disagree with” in Lord Blunkett’s and the committee’s proposals.

“[Community] sentences currently fall way short of their potential. But with the right investment, they have the capacity to succeed where short sentences fail,” said Lord Blunkett. “Custody is sometimes necessary but sentences in the community can be demanding, contrary to public perception.”