Slash prison population, say MPs

The prison population should be cut by a third with thousands of criminals given community punishments in an effort to stop them reoffending, a report by MPs has said.

Courts should regard sending offenders to jail as a last resort, according to the the cross-party Justice Committee.

The prison population should be cut by a third, a committee of MPs has said

The MPs called for a radical shift in penal policy and described Government prison building plans, which will cost £4.24 billion, as a “costly mistake”.

The report, Cutting Crime: The Case For Reinvestment, called for millions of pounds to be diverted from prisons to programmes aimed at rehabilitating offenders and getting addicts off drugs and alcohol.

The committee chairman, Liberal Democrat MP Alan Beith, said: “Prisons are needed, and some very perilous people need to be locked up for a very long time, but prison is no answer, for example, to persistent crimes driven by addiction.