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Tory Gauke to lead British sentencing review

Britain's Labour Party Government has announced that a solicitor and former Conservative lord chancellor is to lead a review of sentencing aimed at ending the country’s prison-population crisis.

David Gauke was named as chair of the body as more prisoners were freed under an emergency-release scheme aimed at addressing what the Ministry of Justice described as “chronic overcrowding”.

“The review will make sure the most serious offenders can be sent to prison to protect the public, and that the country always has the space needed to keep dangerous criminals locked up,” the ministry said.

Alternatives to custody

The review is to follow three “core principles”:

• Make sure prison sentences punish serious offenders and protect the public, and that there is always the space in prison for the most dangerous offenders,
• Look at what more can be done to encourage offenders to turn their backs on a life of crime, and keep the public safe by reducing re-offending, and
• Explore tougher punishments outside of prison to make sure these sentences cut crime while making the best use of taxpayers’ money.

President of the Law Society of England and Wales, criminal-law specialist Richard Atkinson, said: “It is high time for an examination of alternatives to the use of custody, which is an expensive and often counterproductive form of punishment.”

He added, however, that prison overcrowding was just one part of a wider crisis across the criminal justice system, which included huge court backlogs, crumbling courtrooms, and too few lawyers to do all the work. 

“For the government’s plans to work, the whole criminal-justice system needs to be appropriately funded – including defence solicitors,” he stated.