No half jail terms for early guilty pleas: Kenneth Clarke abandons plans

Kenneth Clarke: Made to back down by David Cameron over sentencing plans
12 April 2012

David Cameron has forced Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke to abandon his plans to halve sentences for offenders who plead guilty early.

The move was a key part of Mr Clarke's sentencing plans which would have saved his department £130 million, meaning further cuts are now likely elsewhere, with probation a likely target.

The measures, which will be announced by the Prime Minister, also include a tougher stance on knife crime and the scaling back of the controversial indeterminate jail sentences for public protection, reports said.

Increasing the discount for the earliest guilty pleas from one third to a half would encourage more offenders to admit their guilt, saving costs and sparing victims the ordeal of a trial, Mr Clarke said.

But Mr Cameron, who said yesterday that his Liberal Democrat partners in the coalition were preventing him from taking tougher actions, is reported to have decided that the moves would have undermined his broader commitment to bring sense to sentencing.

Scrapping Mr Clarke's plans will please the Tory right which accused him of appearing "soft on crime".

But Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the probation union Napo, warned the moves would lead to higher costs and more people behind bars.

The prison population in England and Wales stood at 85,345 on Friday, just 150 short of last October's record high of 85,495.

Mr Fletcher also warned that the Justice Secretary would now be left with "a serious hole" in his department's finances.

Prisons and Probation Minister Crispin Blunt hinted last week that further savings could be made from the probation budget if needed.
The Probation Service, which is facing cuts of about 15%, had so far been "quite significantly protected" from the 23% budget cuts in the Ministry of Justice, he told MPs.

Mr Fletcher said: "Further cuts to legal aid, the courts and probation are inevitable.
"This is a serious dent in Ken Clarke's hopes to reduce the prison population.

"Abandoning the (50%) discount means the prison population will not be drastically reduced, therefore cuts to courts, legal aid and probation will be worse than expected.

"Cuts to all three will mean more people will end up in custody because the probation service will not be able to run programmes or supervise
offenders in the community."

The Prime Minister was lambasted in the Commons earlier this month for overseeing a "total mess" on sentencing after another apparent climbdown on a key policy.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said the Prime Minister seemed to have "torn up" the controversial plans to halve jail time for serious criminals in the face of a major backlash.

At the time, the premier backed Mr Clarke, who personally championed the sentencing reforms, saying he was doing a "superb job".

But Mr Cameron is now believed to have forced Mr Clarke to drop the plans entirely.

The controversy was fuelled when Gabrielle Browne, a mother of two who was the victim of an attempted rape, described Mr Clarke's proposals as a "disaster" after confronting him live on radio.

Mr Clarke also sparked an outcry when he suggested some rapes were more serious than others.

But after a meeting with the Justice Secretary, Ms Browne, 45, said she had been persuaded that his plans were "fair enough" in an attempt to reduce the victims' trauma and cut costs.

The Justice Bill will also bring in a mandatory minimum of six months in jail for offenders guilty of aggravated assault with a knife, reports said.

And it is also expected to contain proposals for tougher community sentences and the introduction of a payment-by-results system to reduce reoffending as part of Mr Clarke's "rehabilitation revolution".

Further proposals include plans for judges to be given more discretion over how long killers should spend behind bars.

The Bill will also bring in new release test for offenders serving indeterminate sentences for public protection and plans to let foreign nationals escape a jail term if they leave the UK.

Plans to wipe the slate clean for young offenders when they reach 18 so they are not hindered by a criminal record are also expected, along with moves to divert mentally ill prisoners into treatment in the community rather than prison.

Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said: "Justice policy should be about protecting the public, punishing and reforming offenders and meeting the needs of victims, not just cutting costs by reducing the length on sentences.

"It is good that we have made the Tory-led government see sense on this ludicrous policy, but there still remains serious concerns about other proposals, for example to limit the use of remand in custody and release potentially dangerous criminals without due process.

"I am worried that communities will suffer as a result of the huge cuts this government are making to the prison and probation service."

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Remember these reforms have been subject to proper public consultation and should reflect that unless they have been pulled out of shape at the last minute.

"Politicians can argue until the cows come home about being tough or being soft on crime, but what most people want to see is justice policy that is sensible, proportionate, fair and above all effective in reducing offending and reoffending."

The sentencing U-turn comes a week after former health secretary Alan Milburn branded the coalition's watered-down NHS reforms the "biggest car crash" in the service's history.

The Labour ex-MP, currently advising David Cameron on social mobility, said the taxpayer faced writing "a very large cheque" as billions of pounds in efficiency savings would not be achieved.

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