Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Ministers have accepted proposals that will lead to the biggest penal policy shake-up in decades by slashing the time offenders have to spend in custody in a push to cut chronic overcrowding in jails in England and Wales.
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has taken on several contentious recommendations from an independent sentencing review published on Thursday, including one that would allow some offenders to leave custody after serving one-third of their sentence.
Ministers last year announced a sentencing review by former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke looking at ways to ease a capacity crunch following an early release scheme that involved thousands of prisoners. Gauke said his plans for reform would ultimately free up 9,800 prison places.
The proposals were welcomed by legal groups but triggered a political pushback.
Tory shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick criticised the government’s plans, arguing the changes would amount to a “get out of jail free card” for dangerous criminals.
Electronic tags were “not iron bars” he added, saying that the technology for monitoring offenders on parole “is about as useful as smoke alarms are at putting out bonfires”.
Mahmood rejected a recommendation from Gauke to allow dangerous offenders to apply for parole halfway through their sentences, rather than the current two-thirds, depending on their behaviour.
“If our prisons collapse, courts are forced to suspend trials, the police must halt their arrests, crime goes unpunished,” said Mahmood speaking to Parliament on Thursday, having last week warned that jails would be full again by November.
“This country must never run out of prison places again, there must always be space for dangerous offenders”, she said.
The prison population in England and Wales has roughly doubled over the past 30 years, exceeding 87,000 people, as successive governments introduced longer prison sentences.
The average cost of holding one prisoner in custody for a year was estimated at £53,801 in 2023-24, according to Ministry of Justice data.
Mahmood urged judges to avoid giving out custodial sentences lasting less than one year, and to opt instead for community-based alternatives.
Gauke’s review found that while short jail sentences “may serve as punishment, they often fall short in providing meaningful rehabilitation to offenders, have a limited deterrent effect and come with high costs”.
The report cited evidence from former offenders that such sentences could “lead to a merry-go-round of reoffending, entrenching criminal behaviour”.
With “crime reduction” as an overarching principle, the review recommended altering the “statutory purposes” of sentencing to make clear that reform and rehabilitation of offenders were as important as punishment.
The report recommended increasing the maximum length of suspended custodial sentences from two to three years, aimed at offenders with a “realistic prospect” of rehabilitation in the community.
Courts should also be given more flexibility to use ancillary penalties, such as travel, driving and football bans, the review said. The report’s proposal to use pharmaceuticals for the “chemical suppression” of the libido of some sexual offenders sparked widespread debate.
Mahmood said she was not “squeamish” about pursuing a rollout of chemical castration for sex offenders, adding that for offenders primarily motivated by sexual compulsion, it could have a “big and positive impact”.
Earlier this month, Mahmood told the Financial Times that new technology meant criminals spared jail could still be monitored as closely as those who were behind bars.
Richard Atkinson, president of the Law Society, which represents solicitors, welcomed the proposals as a “positive shift away from an approach which has focused primarily on punishment”.
But he warned that the criminal justice system also needed investment “to ensure the public can have faith” in it.
Barbara Mills KC, chair of the Bar Council, which speaks for barristers, said: “The government must act on these proposed reforms . . . Now is the time to be bold.”