Inside prisons crisis as Keir Starmer told to 'hold his nerve' on unpopular decision

Keir Starmer must “hold his nerve” and shorten jail sentences for criminals even if it is unpopular with the public, leading experts have warned.

The will soon face tough choices as his major sentencing review - which could be published as soon as this week - is expected to demand a complete overhaul of the system. Campaigners say the Government must seize this “historic opportunity” to reverse decades of backwards policy that has caused a catastrophic prisons crisis.

But any deep-rooted solutions are expected to be controversial, unpopular and uneasy for a Prime Minister who is facing dwindling numbers in the polls and the growing threat of

The number of people in prison has risen from about 40,000 in 1991 to more than 88,000 today. The UK imprisons far more people than some its European neighbours, with approximately 134 per 100,000 people in jail, compared to 66 in the Netherlands, 71 in Germany and 53 in Finland.

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But it is not because people are necessarily committing more crime, rather the length of sentences has grown. In 2005, the average custodial sentence was 13 months. By 2023, it was 21 months - almost two years.

“Sentence inflation” is where prison experts lay the most blame for the capacity crisis. The sentencing review, led by former Tory Justice Secretary Sir David Gauke, is expected to recommend offenders being able to earn points to get time off their sentence for good behaviour.

It will also reportedly suggest offenders should serve just a third of their sentence in jail before being monitored under house arrest. And it will recommend more punishment in the community, using electronic tags and curfews.

Experts warn that addressing the minimum amount of time spent in prison - called a “tariff” - must be included to fix the crisis.

Andrea Coomber KC, chief executive at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The Government needs to hold its nerve in providing brave political leadership. If there isn't a serious address on tariff length, then we may well be back in a prison crisis in the next couple of years.

“If this is how we've got here, and this is why we're in this mess, then what is the Gauke review going to do to reverse that trend? Because it needs to be reversed. There needs to be a fundamental reset of the approach to sentencing.”

She said it was “shameful” and “lazy” for politicians to have repeatedly made sentences longer in recent years for “quick sound bites” trying to show they are tackling crime. “It is easy to put people in jail for a period of time and kind of throw away the key and pretend that that's solving crime,” she says.

But Ms Coomber adds: “Prison isn't the answer to crime.” Prisoners are being released from jails with a lack of support, often without a home or job, and end up reverting back to a life of reoffending.

Many are released with drug problems that they did not have before jail, with inmates turning to substances amid spending sometimes 22 hours a day in their cells, with a lack of education or schemes to help get their life back on track. Around 80% of crime is committed by someone who has offended before.

Experts hope that not only will sentencing be overhauled to fix the capacity crisis space but to reconstruct fundamentally how we approach punishment and crime reduction.

Prisons Minister James Timpson, who was previously chair of the Prison Reform Trust charity (PRT), insists cutting reoffending is his priority. But with huge financial pressures, any reforms will have to be strategic.

Campaigners said they have seen hopeful signs Justice Secretary is ready to take the decisions they believe are needed. In March she said she had no choice but to look at reforming long sentences. “Short sentence reform on its own isn't going to be enough,” the Cabinet minister said.

Mark Day, Deputy Director at the PRT, said the sentencing review represents “an historic opportunity to reset our sentencing framework”. He echoed calls to focus on shortening sentences, adding: “Now this is obviously the most politically difficult area to address, and it would involve some quite careful policy in order to turn that tide.

“So you would have to look at an exercise of deflating sentence length as they currently stand, to bring them down to a more proportionate level that perhaps reflected European averages.”

Mr Day continued: “The worry is that if this opportunity isn't seized, we could simply end up with a system that leaps from crisis to crisis, instead of one that is effective at reducing reoffending and ensuring the people who do have to be in prison are essentially enabled to progress through their sentences and then to be released safely and make a success of that release. I think what this has to mean is a more balanced system where prison is used as the appropriate place of last resort.”

The government has been forced to announce a series of short-term emergency measures since gaining power, including releasing thousands of prisoners early.

Just last week Ms Mahmood set out fresh urgent action that will see a group of inmates freed earlier as prisons were on track to hit zero available jail space in Autumn.

For months, she has been laying the groundwork for unpopular decisions to be made after the sentencing review. We will soon see if she - and the PM - follow through.

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