'Day prison' plan for delinquents

Jack Straw wants a debate about repeat offenders

Home Secretary Jack Straw has proposed locking up repeat offenders in "day prisons" in a major overhaul of custodial sentences.

Announcing a review of sentencing policy, Mr Straw said that criminals who habitually commit relatively low-level offences should face new forms of custody.

Courts should take a film of the offender's behaviour rather than snapshots and then only look at the last one

Jack Straw

The moves, labelled "mad" by Conservative Ann Widdecombe, also aim to toughen up community sentences which Mr Straw says are "inadequately enforced".

Mr Straw said existing laws did not allow full weight to be given to criminals' records - but a review will mean that any legislation will be unlikely before the date of the next General Election.

'Revolving door'

A senior Home Office official is expected to lead the review focusing on four different proposals:

"Day custody" during daylight hours, weekends or nights

"Custody plus" combining prison and community sentences

"Variable custody" extending sentences subject to behaviour

A review of suspended sentences

Pledging to shut the "revolving door" that allowed criminals to repeatedly offend without after short prison sentences, Mr Straw said that flexible jail sentencing to remove people from the community could break a cycle of offending.

The courts should "take a film of the offender's behaviour rather than snapshots and only look at the last one", he said.

The idea that certain crimes carried a fixed penalty "or price tag" no matter how many times they were committed was, Mr Straw said: "One with which I profoundly disagree."

Repeat offenders

Mr Straw said that the proposals were aimed at repeat offenders, whereas the current system involved set tariffs for individual crimes.

"These ideas are just a start," he said.

"What is needed is a thorough and imaginative look at how we can finally put an end to the sort of revolving door justice that has so damaged the credibility of the criminal justice system in recent years."

You cannot put people in jail during the working day and release them at night and not expect an upward impact on crime

Ann Widdecombe

"There is particularly an argument in favour of weekend custody, where you would allow someone to carry on with their occupation during the week, but ensure that they were incarcerated in the weekend, as part of both punishment and rehabilitation.

"You intervene as early as you can to try and get the offender out of offending without the need for harsh punishment, if their offences are of an order that would justify that.

"But if they don't get the point and they continue to be a serious risk to the public, then they will face custody."

Mr Straw said the moves he was proposing were necessary due to the "fundamental flaws in the sentencing regime" which took "very little account of previous offending".

But Miss Widdecombe told the BBC that placing a person in jail from nine to five would deprive them "of any chance at all of making a lawful living and then releases them at evenings and weekends to give them the opportunity to make an unlawful living".

Mr Straw's shadow for the opposition also criticised the idea of weekend jail, saying it would create staffing problems for the prison service.

She added:" In trying to solve one problem he [Jack Straw] is creating another one on a massive scale."