Criminal justice system 'failing

Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, Lord Woolf, said last night.

The lord chief justice's comments came within days of a call by Paul Kernaghan, chief constable of Hampshire, for judges to send more offenders to prison for the protection of the public.

Mr Kernaghan claimed that judges and magistrates seemed more concerned with the needs of criminals than of their victims, and were refusing to lock up serial offenders.

But Lord Woolf said: "Fourteen years ago the prison population was 42,000 and falling, while today it is 76,000 and forecast to rise. This is apparently wholly contradictory to public perceptions that courts are unduly lenient.

"What perhaps should come as a shock to the public is how unsuccessful we have been at preventing reoffending.

"The cost of reoffending by ex-prisoners is £11bn per year and the incidence of reoffending after the completion of a sentence is at an unacceptably high level."

He said jail overcrowding prevented the prison service from implementing education and rehabilitation programmes which helped ex-offenders get jobs and turn away from crime. So sending more offenders to prison put the public more at risk from reoffending.

Delivering the Leon Radzinowicz lecture at the opening of a new building for the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University, Lord Woolf called for "greater sense" in sentencing to improve public confidence and make the criminal justice system more effective.

The goal was to help sen tencing achieve all the things it was designed to do: punishing offenders and protecting the public; reducing and deterring crime; ensuring that offenders made reparations to their victims; and reforming and rehabilitating offenders.

That meant halting the continuing rise in the use of prison and instead reserving detention primarily for the most serious offences, particularly violent and dangerous offenders.

The broad range of community punishments had to be made meaningful so that they prevented reoffending and inspired confidence in the public, he said. Drug and other substance abuse testing and training must also be provided and there must be more reliance on properly enforced fines and the confiscation of the proceeds of crime.

Lord Woolf made a plea to ministers to avoid further legislation except where absolutely necessary, to let the courts and the National Offender Management Service absorb changes already made. Judges had to undergo a big training programme before the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which contains a huge number of sentencing reforms, came into force last month.

The lord chief justice also called for more resources for rehabilitation and preventing reoffending as well as for detecting and deterring crime.

Inmates of overcrowded prisons were less able to earn reasonable sums from paid employment or pursue educational courses. This reduced their ability to pay compensation to victims of crime or to turn away from reoffending.

"If an offender is returned to society at the end of his sentence with increased skills, a job to go to and accommodation, the risk of that offender reoffending is significantly reduced."

The prospects of breaking the cycle of reoffending were better because the government had recognised that short prison sentences for less serious offences were "not constructive and should be regarded as a last resort."