Rory Stewart says move could ease pressure on prison population that has more than doubled since 1990s

Jail terms of six months or less could be scrapped, prisons minister suggests

Jail sentences of six months or less for most crimes could be scrapped to alleviate pressure on the system, the prisons minister has suggested.



Some 30,000 criminals per year in England and Wales, including burglars and most shoplifters, could be spared jail under the proposals, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Exceptions would be made for violent or sex offenders, Rory Stewart told the paper.

Stewart said the move would ease pressure on prisons and that “very short” jail terms were “long enough to damage you and not long enough to heal you”.

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“You bring somebody in for three or four weeks, they lose their house, their job, their family, their reputation,” he said.

“They come (into prison), they meet a lot of interesting characters (to put it politely) and then you whap them on to the streets again.

“The public are safer if we have a good community sentence ... and it will relieve a lot of pressure on prisons.”

Since the early 1990s, the prison population has doubled, rising from around 40,000 to more than 80,000 in 2018, official figures show.

More than half of the 86,275 offenders sentenced to immediate custody in England and Wales in 2017 were handed sentences of six months or less, according to a parliamentary response from Stewart to shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon, last month.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: “As we have said previously, short sentences are too often ineffective, provide little opportunity to rehabilitate offenders and lead to unacceptably high rates of reoffending.

“That’s why we are exploring potential alternatives but this work is ongoing and we have reached no conclusions at this time.”