Blunkett: I'll put sense into sentencing

DAVID BLUNKETT will today promise to "put the sense back into sentencing" to restore public confidence in British justice.

As the Evening Standard revealed last week, he will vow to keep violent and sex offenders in jail for years longer and make sure courts hand down tougher sentences to the 100,000 persistent offenders who commit half of all crimes.

The new Home Secretary is delivering his first substantial plans for reform in a speech to coincide with the publication of the government review of sentencing set up last year. He will set out targets for a cut in reoffending rates which would lead to one million fewer victims of crime a year, but which will also mean a further increase in the prison population, which has just reached a record 66,611.

The Government is committed to cutting car crime, burglary and robbery by up to 30per cent by 2005 and has promised that by 2004 there will be a 100,000 more crimes a year for a victim sees an offender brought to justice.

But Mr Blunkett's top priority will be trying to reform offenders, ending the "revolving door" syndrome which sees more than half of criminals reconvicted within two years of being released from jail.

At a conference to launch the new National Probation Service, Mr Blunkett is expected to say that the message to offenders is "stay straight or go back to prison".

Harry Fletcher, of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: "Some of the proposals are thoughtful but it is extraordinary that the Government is pursuing a policy of locking up more people when crime has actually fallen 23 per cent over the last five years."

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