Scrapping prison sentences 6 months and under..?

[Inwaiting]

This cannot be true surely ?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46852559

AIBU to think this is absolutely insane ?

‘About 30,000 offenders - including burglars and most shoplifters - could avoid jail every year under the Ministry of Justice plans.
Sentences for violent and sexual crimes would not be affected by the proposed change, which has been welcomed by prison reform charities as well as trade union Napo’

Why do you think it is insane?

The reality of a short prison sentence is high public costs and very little offence-focussed work completed in prison. Under current sentencing law, half of the sentence is served in custody and half in the community on licence, topped up to a total of 12 months by a period of post sentence supervision (rehabilitative in intention but with no teeth).
Community sentences with appropriate requirements give far more scope for addressing offending behaviour

I’d rather see burglary reclassified as an emotionally violent crime then. It’s a terrible thing to do to somebody’s mental health.

I’m not that fussed about shoplifters.

I don't know. Whatever works best to reduce reoffending. As I know absolutely nothing about criminology or rehabilitation of offenders I'll just go with whatever expert opinion says. What I think would be a real scandal is if measures that are shown to work better long term (such as this maybe) cannot be used because of Daily Mail frothing by people who have absolutely no knowledge on the subject.

I think this is a good thing to be honest

Although I agree burglary should be reclassified as the affect on people is much worse than somebody stealing a chicken, say

Shoplifters and burglars can get longer depending on the severity of the offence, if it was aggravated and whether it's a repeat offence so so long as there is still a higher threshold that does mean imprisonment I don't think that this is a bad thing

I mean, most shoplifters etc. Serve short sentences, are not rehabilitated and come out homeless or unsuitably housed, with no improvement in their job prospects (worse often) and no support with MH, addictions etc. So they just reoffend. I would like to see those people rehabilitated through community sentences rather than choosing an "easy" short stay in prison which at best is pointless and at worst deepens them into a life of crime.

So hard labour & education is out of the question then?

YABU. This is an evidence based policy. Rates of reoffending are significantly lower when people are punished in the community instead of going to prison.

Prison is expensive, ineffective, and increases reoffending. Anything we can do to get closer to a system of only imprisoning violent or dangerous offenders is good as far as I’m concerned.

This is a totally shortsighted proposal and will lead to utter chaos. Whilst I agree good community sentences are better than prison (I'm a Probation Officer), there are many people who just will not turn up to an appointment with Probation and will continue to offend with total disregard for any Court order. Are we just to allow those people to run riot, stealing and burgling? Sometimes the threat of prison is the only thing that makes someone keep appointments with Probation to work on their issues.

This Government is truly clueless. They have destroyed our criminal justice system. Probation Service and prisons are in total disarray. They have cut all support services in the community so people can't access the help they need. Mentally ill people are being criminalised on a daily basis due to lack of community mental health services, homeless people are commiting crime to go back to prison for a roof over their head because there is no housing available for them.

The cynic in me suspects that this move is aimed at enticing private companies in to bid for contracts to run Probation Services. They're just about to be re-tendered. The first round of contracts have been a total failure. Private companies have lost money hand over fist because there weren't enough community sentences being given out by Courts.

The statistics are misleading. Most offenders who commit a first (or even second) minor offence are cautioned, or receive a community punishment. Fair enough. It mostly works.
It is actually really, really, difficult to be imprisoned for a minor offence. The offender must have committed many, many, offences to be imprisoned for, say, shoplifting, or criminal damage.
Such criminals (for many reasons) will not learn from a short prison sentence. It would make much more sense to imprison them for long sentences, so that they may be reformed.
If short prison sentences are abolished, I advise all of us to protect our handbags, our cars, just about anything-this is not going to be fun for the rest of us.
Good luck.
,

I think people confuse "community sentences" with "supervision"
One can be equivalent to a full time job- courses, probation appointments, drug tests, community service, etc.
The other is just a probation appointment

The former may help to rehabilitate offenders, the second very very unlikely.
And nobody is saying they can commit crime- they would be charged again with something else.

I honestly don't think there is any gain from short sentences- either full community punishments or long sentences, with minor offenders falling on one side, and repeated minor offences falling on the other.

Shoplifters and burglars can be sent to prison for considerably more than 6 months depending on the offence. Something like hand bag theft is often aggravated, and violent offences still often meet the threshold for longer term punishments.

I don't think there is any answer that's going to work for every offender, but honestly I think we have been doing short sentences for a long time and it's worth giving something else a try.

Or are we just going to go with "well, that's how it's always been"?