Government will consider abolishing short prison sentences

Ministers had hoped the existing early release scheme would give them 12 months.

But this year’s riots mean prisons will have to be full again next summer before any changes to sentences can be made.

In the long term, ministers want to consider changes to sentences that could reduce crime.

Ending or removing short sentences could have a particular effect on the number of women in prison, after the Prison Reform Trust found last year that more than half (58%) of prison sentences imposed on women in 2022 were less than six months .

Figures from the Ministry of Justice show, external More than half of adults (57%) released from prison sentences of less than 12 months reoffended.

A Ministry of Justice source said the government would encourage the reviewer “to follow the evidence in terms of how the sentence can reduce crime”.

“Prisons are creating better criminals, not better citizens,” the source said.

A lawyer seen as belonging to the centrist wing of the Conservative Party, Gauke could be seen as a controversial choice to lead the review.

In 2019, he gave a series of speeches to call for a shift from short prison sentences to community punishment.

But Gauke’s successor, Robert Buckland, said he did not believe abolishing short sentences was the right way forward.