Longer prison sentences do not cut crime, claims Justice Secretary Ken Clarke - mirror.co.uk
"The veteran Tory Cabinet minister said that locking criminals up for longer risked fuelling crime as jails became overcrowded.
And Mr Clarke said that it was the media, not soft judges, who were undermining public confidence in the justice system.
The incendiary remarks came after Tory MP Nicola Blackwood told him that people wanted to see a more “effective deterrent”.
Speaking in the Commons, she said: “I think that the lack of confidence within the public is not just due to a thirst for punishment beyond reason.
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“There is also the fact that re-offending rates are high and the point about sentencing is you want to see that it is effective, and it is an effective deterrent against re-offending.”
Mr Clarke agreed that re-offending was the “biggest weakness of our system” but said that more attention was needed on the “reform of more offenders".
And he hinted at softer sentences, calling for a “more intelligent use of the prisons estate”.
Mr Clarke said: “Some people have held the belief, which is quite understandable, for years, that in order to cut re-offending you’ve got to deter people by sending more and more people to prison for longer and longer sentences.
“It is my personal opinion that the evidence completely refutes that - that does not work, particularly if it makes the prisons overcrowded, unresponsive places where they toughen up and meet some rougher friends and then are released to fend for themselves in the outside world.”
Senior Tory MP Edward Leigh pointed out that 37% of convicted burglar were spared jailed in 2009."
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2012/02/03/longer-prison-sentences-do-not-cut-crime-claims-justice-secretary-ken-clarke-115875-23733290/#ixzz1lKz6kjfg
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