Working in parliament on short prison sentence reform

The efforts came during debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, currently making its way through parliament.

As part of our work, we assisted in the drafting of a parliamentary amendment, and produced a briefing for members of parliament, explaining the rationale. The briefing can be downloaded below.

Here are a few clips from the debate on 15 December.

First of all, here is Lord Ponsonby, who is part of the Labour Party shadow justice team in the House of Lords, making the point that there is widespread support for short sentence reform.

Lord German, for the Liberal Democrats, argued that current sentencing guidelines made it too easy to send someone to prison, particularly when they had a history of minor, but repeated, law-breaking.

And here is Lord Bradley, author of a major report on drugs services and programmes in the criminal justice system, arguing that community-based programmes could be much more effective than "expensive and futile" short prison sentences.

Our work on short sentences reform over the last year has influenced discussions on this issue in both the Commons and the Lords. There is still much to do. And while the proposed reform was not successful this time round, we are continuing to work to strengthen and support a coalition of views on this issue.  

Get in touch if you'd like to know more about our work in this area.