So David Cameron wants to toughen up non-custodial community sentences with new sanctions.
Seemingly admitting that community sentences are seen as a soft alternative to prison, which they are, the Prime Minister is proposing to include new ‘tougher’ measures in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, though whether he’ll get his proposals past the arch-softy Ken Clarke is another matter.
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said:
"We want to reform community sentences to ensure that offenders are properly punished for their crimes and effectively rehabilitated and we are still considering a variety of options. We will publish a consultation setting out our proposals in due course."
Umm, been there, seen all that before.
Over the last 20 years I’ve seen various ‘initiatives’ to ‘toughen up’ non-custodial sentences. We’ve had ‘Community Service’; ‘Un-Paid Work’; ‘Community Payback’; Accredited Programs’; ‘Specified Activities’; ASBOs; restraining orders; football banning orders; exclusion orders and a host of other ‘sanctions’, none of which has made the slightest impression on either re-offending rates or the public’s perception that successive governments care more about money and social engineering than protecting the public.
And statistically it’s not looking good either.
In December, the National Offender Management Service said that during 2010/11 one in four offenders who had been given community sentences, or released from prison early on licence, failed to comply with the terms set by the authorities.They went on to say that of the 198,725 orders and licences that came to an end during that period, only 150,632 were completed successfully, a failure rate of one in four.
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