Tougher community service announced
By Oliver Hotham
The Ministry Of Justice has announced more stringent community service sentences for offenders.
New plans involve, most notably, a new 'intensive community punishment sentence' which involves more use of electronic tagging, curfews and travel bans.
There is also a guarantee that every community sentence will include a punishment, and new measures to prevent offenders convicted of alcohol-fuelled crime from drinking.
The plans also seek to give probation services more power over their budgets to better target local needs.
Justice secretary Ken Clarke said that there is urgent need to reform the criminal justice system to make it more credible.
"All too often community sentences are seen as an easy option, sometimes just a weekly meeting with a probation officer or a few hours of unpaid work in an entire week," he said.
"Criminals must be punished for their crimes, they must pay back to communities and victims for their crimes and they must be reformed.
"Good sentencing is a combination of firm punishment and effective reform of the offender."
The plans also include more effective use of compensation orders, whereby an offender's is forced to face his victims and compensate them monetarily.
Ministers have expressed their concerns that the current measures are too lenient.
The new plans has been criticised for their use of electronic tagging, which opponents say is expensive and ineffective.
Labour's shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan accused the government of attempting to "privatise our criminal justice system without the evidence this will lead to an improvement in punishment and reform."
He continued: "The Government have not explained how they propose to fund increased use of community sentences given the Ministry of Justice budget faces cuts of a quarter."
"Government proposals run the risk of fragmenting our probation service. While we welcome the spreading of best practice and the introduction of innovative ideas by bringing in outside expertise, experience shows that a headlong rush to privatisation risks unnecessarily breaking up the system."
Around 170,000 people a year receive community sentences. The Ministry of Justice claims they are cheaper and cut re-offending.
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