‘Families must feel safe in their homes’: Cameron defends U-turn on criminals

SENTENCES would have been too lenient and criminals would have been sent the “wrong message” if plans to halve jail terms for offenders who plead guilty early had gone ahead, David Cameron has said.

Confirming the policy u-turn, the Prime Minister said the prison system was failing and needed to be reformed so families can “feel safe in their homes”.

Savings of some £100 million that would have been made through the plans will now be sought through “efficiencies” elsewhere in Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke’s department, Mr Cameron said.

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The Prime Minister also denied that the u-turn was a sign of weak government.

Talking of his decision to scrap the plans, Mr Cameron said: “For the most serious crimes, we’ve concluded this would certainly not be right.

“The sentence served would depart far too much from the sentence handed down by the judge, and this is simply not acceptable.

“The sentence would be too lenient, the wrong message would be sent out to the criminal and it would erode public confidence in the system.”

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Those working in the justice system told the Government “50% was just too high”, Mr Cameron said, as he added that better ways to speed up the process for victims and witnesses needed to be found.

“There will be no change to the current position on early guilty pleas for any category of case.

“The money that would have been saved through this proposal will be saved through greater efficiency in other parts of the Ministry of Justice budget.”

Indeterminate jail sentences for public protection are unclear, inconsistent and uncertain.

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Many members of the public do not know how they work, two offenders who commit the same crime can serve a different length of time behind bars, and victims and their families do not know when offenders will be released, Mr Cameron said.

“We’re going to review the existing system urgently with a view to replacing it with an alternative that is clear, tough and better understood by the public.”

This alternative system would include a “greater number of life sentences, including mandatory life sentences for the most serious repeat offenders”, he said.

“Instead of serious, sexual and violent offenders being released halfway through their sentence, we propose they should spend at least two-thirds of that sentence in prison, and that such offenders should never again be released early without the parole board being satisfied that it is safe to let this happen.”

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Dangerous offenders should also take part in compulsory programmes behind bars to make them change their behaviour, the Premier said.

Legislation is expected in the autumn, he said.

“The public need to know that dangerous criminals will be locked up for a very long time. I’m determined that they will be.”

”Public confidence isn’t a side-issue in this debate, it is the issue,” he said.

“My mission is to make sure families feel safe in their homes and they can walk the streets freely and without fear. Our policies are about making sure that is the case.

“The system today is failing and badly needs reform.”

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He went on: “Let me be clear. We will always pay the costs necessary to protect the public and punish criminals.

“We will not reduce the prison population by cutting prison sentences. We must do it by making prison work.”

Breaking the cycle of reoffending needs a new approach, he said, with those who run prisons or community sentences being paid according to their success in reducing reoffending at every stage.

“Anyone who thinks that action to reduce reoffending is somehow going soft on crime could not be more wrong,” he said.

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“Whether people feel safe on the streets is a direct result of how good we are at stopping reoffending.”

The justice bill will include “tough action on knife crime, which has been the cause of so many tragedies in our communities”, Mr Cameron said.

“Even after all these tragedies, far too many people still think they can go out armed with a knife. We need to send the clearest possible message that this simply has to change.

A compulsory jail term will be brought in for anyone threatening someone with a knife, he said.

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A criminal offence of squatting will also be proposed, along with stronger measures to protect homeowners defending their property.

“We will put beyond doubt that homeowners and small shopkeepers who use reasonable force to defend themselves or their properties will not be prosecuted.”

Earlier, the father of murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor called for Mr Clarke to be sacked after being forced to abandon his sentencing plans.

Richard Taylor welcomed the U-turn on proposals to halve sentences for offenders who plead guilty early, saying David Cameron’s decision to force Mr Clarke to back down was right.

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Calling for the Prime Minister to sack Mr Clarke, Mr Taylor said he should be “removed” as Justice Secretary.

“Ken Clarke is not doing the right thing, his advisers are not giving him the right advice on the issue,” he said.

“Ken Clarke does not know what is going on in the streets, he does not know what criminality is about. He is taking decisions about what he does not know about.

“David Cameron’s decision to abandon the Ken Clarke statement is right.”

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Mr Taylor founded the Damilola Taylor Trust in memory of his 10-year-old son, who bled to death in 2000 after he was jabbed in the thigh with a broken beer bottle by a gang of youths as he walked home from the local library in Peckham, south London.

One of the two brothers convicted over the killing was returned to jail in March amid accusations of failings by the probation service.

Victims’ group Families Fighting for Justice also called for Mr Clarke to resign.

Jean Taylor, the founder of the group, said: “Ken Clarke lives in la la land.

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“If he can say that a rapist deserves 50% off for an early guilty plea then what world does he live in?

“He does not live in the real world.”

Mrs Taylor, 61, of the Wirral, Merseyside, added that more than 1,000 people had signed an online petition calling for his resignation and urged Mr Clarke to meet victims to hear their experiences first hand.

Many of the proposals outlined by Mr Cameron today risk increasing the prison population in England and Wales, which stood at 85,345 on Friday, just 150 short of last October’s record high of 85,495.

Each prison place costs about £45,000 a year, with almost one in two offenders reoffending within one year, Mr Cameron said.

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The sentencing U-turn comes a week after former health secretary Alan Milburn branded the coalition’s watered-down NHS reforms the “biggest car crash” in the service’s history.

The Labour ex-MP, currently advising David Cameron on social mobility, said the taxpayer faced writing “a very large cheque” as billions of pounds in efficiency savings would not be achieved.

A senior Liberal Democrat MP said: “You can be pretty certain there will be considerable disappointment among Liberal Democrats that Ken Clarke’s views have not prevailed.

“We may be in a coalition but we have not abandoned our liberal views.”

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But the Prime Minister claimed it was a sign of “strength and confidence” that the coalition was prepared to listen and change its mind.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, he insisted it was the “weak thing to do” to keep “ploughing on” when consultations on reform indicated there were better ways of doing things.

“The tough, strong thing to do is to say ‘yes, we can make these plans better’,” he said, adding that that was what the Government had done on both sentencing and the NHS.

Mr Cameron indicated that the Probation Service had suffered less in cuts so far than the police and was not safe from the fallout from the latest changes.

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Asked if a deal had been struck to protect it, he said: “We have not made that agreement. Obviously, the Probation Service is a part of the Ministry of Justice’s bill. The proposed efficiencies in the Probation Service are less at the moment than the efficiencies we are making, for instance, to the police service.”

He said: “The money that won’t be saved from the sentencing reform, £130 million, we will be able to save in other parts of the Ministry of Justice, not least because it’s an £8 billion budget and we have a four-year programme of savings.

“The key change is this: we want to make savings through making the services, including prison, more efficient and more effective and cut reoffending rates. We are not going to save money by cutting sentences.

“I think the public will be right behind that.”

In a written statement to MPs, Mr Clarke added that community sentences would be made “tougher”, with longer curfews, a ban on overseas travel, and “properly-enforced financial penalties, including seizing assets from those who do not pay”.

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Community service will also be overhauled “so that offenders work longer hours, carrying out purposeful, unpaid activity that benefits their local community”.

And powers to take money from prisoners’ earnings to support victims will be extended, he said.

Five drug recovery wings in prisons will also be piloted as part of moves to get more offenders off drugs and alcohol “for good”.

Payment-by-results schemes designed to cut reoffending will be extended, with services delivered by the voluntary, independent and public sectors. Six new pilot schemes will begin in areas including Greater Manchester and London next month.

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A “clear national framework for the use of out-of-court disposals, reforming the use of remand, and reducing the number of foreign national offenders” will also be brought in, Mr Clarke said.

Gemma Lousley, of the Criminal Justice Alliance, which represents more than 50 criminal justice organisations, said: “Continuing to pour money into a bloated prison system whilst cutting funding to probation and community programmes, which are cheaper and more effective than custody, is a hopeless waste of resources, while introducing a new mandatory minimum sentence is neither a necessary nor an effective response to the problems of knife crime.

“If the Government is truly committed to a ‘rehabilitation revolution’, it needs to set aside unhelpful tough-talking on crime, and focus on efficient and effective responses to offending.”

The Prime Minister rejected calls from Richard Taylor, the father of murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor, for the Justice Secretary to be sacked.

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Mr Cameron said: “I have every respect for Richard Taylor, a man I have met several times.

“Everyone knows not just how he has suffered as a father but also how much he has put back into wanting to make Britain a safer and better place.

“I have huge respect for him but I don’t agree with him about Ken Clarke.

“I think Ken is an extremely effective minister, he’s a very tough Secretary of State.

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“He has got a hugely difficult job to do in trying to deliver more for less through his department.

“Like me, he is quite robust and prepared enough to put forward proposals and listen to what people say and come up with something better.

“I think that is a strength in politics, not a weakness, and certainly something Ken has no problems doing.”

Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said the Government’s policies on law and order were “in complete shambles”.

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“They do not have a coherent strategy for cutting crime because they are obsessed only with cutting costs,” he said.

“I am worried it will be victims of crime and communities around this country that will suffer as a result of this Government’s cuts to criminal justice, which go too far and too fast.”

He went on: “David Cameron made big promises on policing, honesty in sentencing and knife crime, which have all been watered down or broken. This has damaged public trust in the justice system.

“We were promised a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ but instead this bill will deliver cuts to the probation services, cuts to youth offending teams and cuts to the prison service that works to reform offenders.

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“Asking those services that deliver rehabilitation and protection of the public to bear the brunt of the cuts to the justice system at the same time as keeping more offenders in the community is simply irresponsible.

“I am deeply concerned about the Government’s plans to limit the ability of judges and magistrates to hold people on remand in custody and the potential to weaken the process to keep in custody those offenders that pose a serious threat to public safety.

“This seems to fly in the face of one of the primary purposes of the justice system - to protect the public.”

Former Tory home secretary Lord Howard said the Government had taken a “perfectly sensible” approach.

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“The area we are talking about today was the subject of a consultation document, there was consultation, views were expressed in the course of that consultation and the Government has listened to those views,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One.

“I think that’s a perfectly sensible way to approach these matters.”