'Jobs help for criminals' plan

A 'superbobby' scheme is planned

All convicted criminals will be given help to find work and homes when they leave prison, a Home Office minister has revealed.

But Paul Boateng, speaking on BBC1's On the Record, rejected suggestions that the proposals, to be formally announced by the prime minister on Monday, showed the government was soft on crime.

All prison sentences will have an element of control and supervision when they come to an end

Paul Boateng, Home Office minister

His comments followed a leaked Home Office memo indicating that some criminals sentenced to a year in custody could be released after three months.

Mr Boateng brushed aside the memo and insisted that the government's plans would crack down on the 100,000 hard core of repeat offenders.

"We will ensure that those people who do commit offences persistently are sent to prison for longer but that all people who are sent to prison are subject to rigorous monitoring when they leave prison," he said.

Paul Boateng: Dismissed memo

Under the 'crime plan' - which will tackle police, prison, probation and court procedures - all 30,000 prisoners released each year would be helped to overcome drug problems and find work and a home.

The 'payback' would be more electronic tagging and supervision, Mr Boateng added.

The Home Office memo from senior aide Justin Russell, leaked to The Sunday Times, was apparently written shortly before Home Secretary Jack Straw's speech to Labour's spring conference in Glasgow earlier this month.

It raises worries over a proposed target to solve 100,000 more crimes by 2004, which Mr Russell said "doesn't look very impressive" and "exposes how poor performance is at the moment".

'Soft'

Figures in the memo suggest that only a quarter of the 5.2 million crimes reported have led to offenders being brought to justice.

The memo also indicates that Mr Straw is considering a controversial scheme to reduce all sentences of less than a year to three months.

This internal memo is a devastating expose of Labour's total failure to tackle rising crime

Conservative spokesman

Plans for a "custody-plus" punishment, which would link short jail sentences with longer periods of "intensive community supervision", could be portrayed as "soft", he warns.

Shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe said the perception was real.

Speaking on BBC1's Breakfast with Frost, she said: "Just ask people what their personal experience is.

Do they see police officers these days? Do they trust the government on crime?"

She said police numbers were still "vastly down" on those inherited by Labour, despite recent recruitment.

'Devastating'

And a spokesman at Conservative central office added: "This internal memo is a devastating expose of Labour's total failure to tackle rising crime.

"The memo reveals that if Labour is re-elected it will offer no more than stunts and gimmicks in its so-called 10-year plan to tackle crime."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes said Labour had failed to deliver on crime and was in "trouble".

Only three in 100 crimes were "deterred and detected" and the prison system had been a "disaster", he told GMTV.

There was a danger of the Jack Straw and Ann Widdecombe "roadshow" trying to "tough out" each other on policy, he added.

Under Labour plans, senior police officers are to be offered pay bonuses to stay on the beat.

'Superbobbies'

The "superbobbies" are one of a series of specialist positions likely to be introduced in an attempt to overcome a culture within the police which currently encourages officers to be "generalists" rather than to hone specific skills.

The proposals come just days after the release of the International Crime Victims Survey, which showed that people in England and Wales were more likely to be victims of crime than residents of virtually any other developed country.