Prison reform slated

Criminal lawyers this week greeted with scepticism government plans to reform prison sentencing policy.The Halliday report, unveiled last week by Home Secretary David Blunkett, recommended tougher sentences for repeat offenders - by ensuring that judges take previous offences into consideration - but also greater flexibility for lesser offences and first-time offenders.Malcolm Fowler, chairman of the Law Society's criminal law committee, described the reforms as a 'curate's egg', which would hinder the discretion of the judiciary.'Judges should be independent at all levels, and if they believe that a non-custodial sentence is the most appropriate for a particular offender, they should be free to make that decision,' he said.

'Dealing with criminal sentencing in the same way as motoring offences - a certain number of points means a certain sentence - is not appropriate, and is "sentencing by numbers".'Franklin Sinclair, chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, attacked what he saw as government 'meddling'.

'Criminal sentencing reforms take a considerable time to bed down and show their worth,' he said.

'We have only recently had a raft of new reforms, such as curfews and treatment orders, that are suddenly being abandoned in favour of new ideas.'He called for government 'consistency and certainty', and stressed that 'every change of government or home secretary should not mean a complete change of sentencing policy.'Victoria MacCallum