MPs want cut in prisoners

The prison population should be cut by a third, with thousands of criminals given community punishments in an effort to stop them reoffending, say MPs.

Courts should regard sending offenders to jail as a last resort, the cross-party Justice Committee says today, as the MPs call for a radical shift in penal policy.

Government prison building plans costing 4.24bn are described as a "costly mistake".

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A report by the MPs, Cutting Crime: The case for reinvestment, calls for millions of pounds to be diverted from prisons to programmes aimed at rehabilitating offenders and getting addicts off drugs and alcohol.

The committee chairman, Liberal Democrat MP Alan Beith, said: "Prisons are needed, and some very dangerous people need to be locked up for a very long time, but prison is no answer, for example, to persistent crimes driven by addiction."