Will part-time prison cut crime or costs?

AFTER a hard week's work, most people look forward to a relaxing weekend with their family and friends, perhaps a spot of shopping, some DIY, or a trip to the cinema. But for some people, the arrival of Friday evening could mean putting together an overnight bag and getting ready for a weekend in prison.

With a prison population growing faster than new jails can be built, Home Secretary David Blunkett's solution is to give some inmates an unexpected taste of freedom. Those considered not to be dangerous could be fitted with electronic tags and allowed out a month earlier than normal, and weekend jails could be introduced to allow them to stay at work during the week.

While Mr Blunkett balanced this seemingly liberal proposal with a promise to get tough on some criminals, including car-jackers and mobile phone thieves, it is an admission that the Government has lost its way on tackling crime, according to Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust.

"People who are sent to prison are sent for two reasons. One is that the crime is so serious that only a term of imprisonment is appropriate," he says. "And the second is where offenders have exhausted up to ten alternatives to prison and have run out of options.

"Before you go to prison, you are given a warning, a caution, you get bound over, a conditional discharge, probation, a fine, a suspended sentence how many chances do you need? When you have hostels for the weekend, what sort of message does that send? It is another excuse not to send someone to prison."

For Mr Brennan, the reason for Mr Blunkett's generosity towards some offenders is clear, and it has nothing to do with reducing crime. With 68,000 people now in prison, compared with 44,000 in 1991, the cost of keeping them all locked up is proving too much.

"The civil servants are more interested in saving money than protecting society," he says. "But sometimes the public has an absolute right to be protected. It is no good the Government saying it is costing too much to keep them in prison the victims of crime and the public want them locked up because then they are not terrorising the streets.

'The reason we have got more people in prison in this country than anywhere else in Europe is because we have more crime than anywhere else in Europe. The question is, do people feel safe walking the streets? People live in a state of fear of being victims of crime and they feel the Government is not doing enough.

"This Government has a disgraceful record on crime and law and order. It has brought in all sorts of measures and none of them has worked. Anti-social behaviour orders are an absolute joke and hardly anyone has been given one, curfews have been a disaster, three strikes and you're out has never been implemented I want the Government to make one promise on crime and keep it, rather than making dozens and keeping none."

But the Home Secretary's proposals have, unsurprisingly, found favour with the Howard League for Penal Reform, which has campaigned about the number of people being incarcerated in this country.

"We welcome the news that David Blunkett has highlighted the fact that the prison population is ridiculously high," says a spokeswoman. "Anything that is going to reduce the prison population is a good thing. It is also a recognition that prison isn't working, if you look at the re-conviction rates."

For male prisoners under 21, 76 per cent go on to re-offend once they are released from custody, and for 14-16-year-olds, the figure is even higher, at 85 per cent. The number of women in jail is also at an all-time high, at more than 4,000 - an increase of 25 per cent from this time last year. And one of the reasons why many criminals go on to re-offend after release is that programmes designed to steer them away from criminal behaviour are often not available to prisoners serving terms of two or three months, she says.

"There is very little you can do if someone is on a short sentence. Two months is not enough time to take an education course and come out with a certificate. All it does is become very disruptive, particularly if they have families.

"You need to look at what these people are in prison for, and there are a number of people in prison for non-violent offences, who are given short sentences but it is not achieving anything. In some circumstances, a community penalty can be more effective than sentencing them to prison."

The danger in Mr Blunkett's proposals, according to the Howard League, is not that more criminals will be on the loose, but that offenders who might previously have received short sentences could find themselves being locked up for some time, if the courts felt that the alternative would see them treated too leniently.

But, while Norman Brennan recognises the value of doing something worthwhile with offenders while they are in prison, being too harsh on some criminals is not his prime consideration. And, while jail may seem tough for some non-violent offenders, it is often only introduced when they have reached the end of a long list of non-custodial sentences.

"If David Blunkett is talking about graffiti or criminal damage, then people aren't sent to prison straight away for that," he says. "Why is he saying we shouldn't be sending people to prison, when they have exhausted many of the alternatives?" And the Home Secretary's pledge to get tough on the mobile phone thieves and the car-jackers, no doubt inspired by recent high-profile cases, gets equally short shrift.

"Why is it we have to have a crisis in the criminal justice system before we do something about it?" he says. "This has been going on for years, and some of us have been telling successive governments how serious crime was getting. There aren't enough police officers on the beat and the criminal justice system isn't working.

"It is no good waiting until crime gets to epidemic proportions before doing something about it. The solution is much harder later on than when the problems are first starting to be recognised."

Instead of coming out with promises and pledges, the Government should tackle crime head on, with increasing the number of police officers as a starting point, he says.

"We have got to wake up to how serious these problems are. If we accept that violent crime exists on the streets and there is little we can do about it, then it gives the Government a Get Out Of Jail Free card - it means they don't have to do anything.

"It is about time the law-abiding public and the victims of crime took the streets back from the muggers and the thugs who blight our lives."