Prison officials against short-term sentences

London: Prison governors and probation officers yesterday stepped up their pressure on the justice secretary, Ken Clarke, to end the use of short-term term jail sentences for the 8,500 prisoners currently serving sentences of 12 months or less.

The Prison Governors Association says that the £4 billion (Dh21.7 billion) prison building programme should be halted and short-term prisoners dealt with by cheaper and more effective community punishments outside jail.

The demand is backed by probation officers with research published yesterday showing a reoffending rate above 74 per cent for the 55,000 short-term prisoners jailed each year for up to six months.

Napo, the probation union, argues that the £350 million cost of imprisoning them would be better spent on intensive community orders.

The intervention of prison governors and probation staff comes as the Ministry of Justice studies whether the prison building programme, to allow prisons to cope with a population of 96,000 in England and Wales by 2014, is sustainable in the face of the public spending squeeze.

Unsustainable numbers

The jail population has just reached a record 85,000 inmates.

The justice secretary has already acknowledged that short-term sentences are ineffective with his prisons minister, Crispin Blunt, referring to their reoffending rates as a disaster.

Clarke also questioned the continued increase in prison numbers and set up a review of sentencing policy, which is due to report in October.