Government Launches Review to Explore Non-Custodial Sentences Amid Prison Overcrowding

A person seen outside HM Prison Wandsworth in London, on Oct. 22, 2024. Ben Whitley/PA Wire

The government has launched a review into sentencing that will include looking at “tough alternatives” to custody amid prison overcrowding.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said on Monday that the review, to be led by former Justice Secretary David Gauke, will examine using technology to place convicts in a “prison outside prison.”

Addressing the House of Commons on Tuesday, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood elaborated that this could involve expanding the use of home detention curfews, using ankle tags, to put criminals “under a form of house arrest” for part of the day.

“Should they break that curfew, they can be picked up and, if needs be, locked up,” the minister told MPs, adding that she would return to the House with details of further measures on expanding home detention curfews.

Gauke will also be looking at other alternatives to custodial sentences, including enforced community service or fines.

The prison population has roughly doubled in the last 30 years, increasing by around 4,500 annually. Some 80 percent of offenders are reoffenders, and 90 percent of those sentenced to custody are reoffenders.

Increasing Prison Capacity

The review will also consider the approach to sentencing serial offenders, exploring the use of shorter sentencings, and looking at the framework around longer sentencing.

In line with the new Labour government’s plans to tackle violence against women and girls, the MoJ said the review will also consider whether sentencing for such crimes “fits the severity of the act,” looking at whether more can be done to tackle prolific offending.

The department says that the first principle of the review is to protect the public and ensure that serious offenders are punished, pledging that the most dangerous criminals will be incarcerated.

The justice secretary said the review, along with plans to increase prison capacity by 14,000, “will ensure we never again have more prisoners than prison spaces.”

Mahmood continued: “I believe in punishment. I believe in prison, but I also believe that we must increase the range of punishments we use. And that those prisoners who earn the right to turn their lives around should be encouraged to do so.

“The Sentencing Review will make sure prison and punishment work—and that there is always a cell waiting for dangerous offenders.”

Gauke will complete his review by spring 2025.

Early Release

The announcement was made the day before a second wave of prisoners was due to be released early in a bid to tackle prison overcrowding.

In July, Mahmood announced plans to temporarily cut the minimum time convicts must serve behind bars from 50 percent to 40 percent, with the government authorising the release of its first batch of 1,700 inmates in September with another 1,100 released on Tuesday.

The government promised that those jailed for domestic abuse, terrorism, or serious violent offences will not be released early.

However, concerns raised by domestic abuse campaigners that some abusers could be set free were validated when 37 prisoners who should not have been were released early last month, including those convicted of offences related to domestic abuse.

Mahmood told the Commons on Tuesday that all 37 had been returned to custody and she would “ensure that that mistake cannot happen again.”

Foreign National Offenders

The minister also said that she was working with colleagues in the Home Office on deporting foreign national offenders, of which there are around 10,000 in UK prisons, costing the taxpayer £50,000 a year each to detain.

Mahmood told MPs: “We are currently on track to remove more foreign national offenders this year than at any time in recent years.

“But I will now be working with my colleagues across government to explore the ways that we can accelerate that further, including working with the Home Office to make the early removal scheme for foreign offenders more effective.”

“It happens to be my personal view that deportation is as good a punishment as imprisonment, if not better,” she said.