By Rich Bowden, M&C Staff Writer Dec 5, 2007, 13:25 GMT
(M&C) - A review into prison overcrowding has found jail sentences should, in certain cases, be handed down with the availability of prison cells in mind.
British Justice Minister Jack Straw speaks as he's waiting for a meeting with High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary-General of the Council Spanish Javier Solana during European Interior affairs council in Brussels, Belgium on 18 September 2007. EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET
Justice Secretary Jack Straw will publish the controversial findings by Lord Carter who was given the task of making recommendations to reduce jail overcrowding.
The Justice Minister has himself come out in support of more non-custodial sentences particularly if the sentence is less than one year.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said last month: "We will always make sure there are prison places for those serious and dangerous offenders who ought to be in prison and that courts have tough community sentences at their disposal to deal with less serious, non violent offenders."
"The Government has already announced an additional 9,500 prison places, 700 of which will be delivered by the end of this year."
Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust welcomed the report.
"It would be a recognition that we have got into a really terrible mess over a long period of time - prisons have been overcrowded since 1994," she told the BBC.
Latest prison population figures show there has been a drop to 81,455 from a high in November.
Update: An extra £1.2bn will be invested to fund a building and modernisation programme of British jails which will include the construction of three "super-jails" housing about 2,500 inmates.
The programme was announced by Justice Secretay Jack Straw today who unveiled the changes as part of a major review into prison overcrowding.
He said it would add an extra 10,500 prison places by 2014, bringing the total to 96,000.
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