PRT comment: Justice secretary visits Texas for ideas for sentencing reform

Commenting on the visit of the justice secretary Shabana Mahmood MP to Texas to consider ideas for sentencing reform, including an incentives scheme for earned early release, Mark Day, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said:

“There are important lessons which can be learnt from other countries and we welcome the openness of the justice secretary to ideas for reform. An incentives scheme may have potential but on its own it will not solve our overuse of imprisonment. There are also important questions to address about how such as scheme could be applied and administered fairly, particularly in a system as overstretched and under resourced as our own.

“A comprehensive approach to sentencing reform must also include measures to tackle sentence inflation, improve sentence progression, limit the use of recall, reduce the use of short sentences and encourage the take up of community alternatives. Structural changes are also required so that sentencing policy is based on evidence of what is effective at reducing reoffending instead of a knee jerk political response to sensationalist headlines.

“We are encouraged by the interim report of the sentencing review and look forward to it full report in the spring, which we hope will recommend the bold measures necessary to bring our use of imprisonment down to a sustainable and proportionate level.”