By
Jack Doyle
Last updated at 10:30 PM on 23rd February 2012
Thousands of serial offenders are being let off with a slap on the wrist – despite each committing more than 15 crimes.
Some 4,500 criminals with 15 or more convictions were given a caution last year.
Tens of thousands more were handed fines, community sentences or suspended jail terms. Overall, some two-thirds of the worst serial offenders escaped jail, Ministry of Justice statistics show.
The police are handing out more and more cautions, even to those committing offence after offence
MPs said the figures betrayed the ‘soft justice’ system and called for more public control over sentences.
Tory MP for Clacton, Douglas Carswell, said: ‘From November we get to elect our police chiefs. We now need to ensure democratic accountability over the rest of the criminal justice system.
‘So long as we leave it to the Secretary of State, we will never sort this problem out and get the criminal justice system we want and the public demands.
‘Soft justice is a consequence of an unaccountable justice system.’
Sentencing figures published yesterday showed nearly 105,000 criminals with at least 15 previous offences came back before the courts in England and Wales.
More than one third were locked up. But
67,461 were given a non-custodial sentence. Around a third of those,
20,553 were given community sentences and 16,149 were given a fine.
More than 11,000 were handed an absolute or conditional discharge – in effect no punishment at all. A further 8,160 were given suspended jail sentences.
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke wants to promote better reform programmes rather than filling up prisons
In 2004 the custody rate for offenders after 15 or more crimes was 42 per cent, nearly 7 per cent higher.
Overall, three quarters of crimes are committed by adults and juveniles with existing records.
Last year re-offending accounted for some 638,153 out of more than 850,000 offences.
Government officials suggested average prison sentences were at a ten-year high, with burglars locked up for an average of 19 months.
Average sentences for robbery and drug offences were also up.
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has pledged to mount a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ to turn offenders away from crime.
He wants tougher community punishments and better reform programmes.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: ‘Overall re-offending is falling but the levels are still too high and we are determined to address the root causes of this behaviour.
‘We are making our jails places of hard work, toughening community sentences and making offenders pay back victims and communities.’
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This must be the underclass equivalent of getting a bonus (and promotion) for failure. . We are certainly living in very strange times.
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Prisons cost money to build, and that money comes from taxation. You can’t have it both ways.
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A far more shocking headline would have been “serial offenders given jail terms”…
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The public need to be as enraged about this as they were the riots (which the government couldn’t hide)
This situation is an insult to the law abiding public
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Nowhere near enough detail here. Are these people who have walked free hardened serial muggers and burglars, or recidivist litter louts and casual drug users? There’s a world of difference. But what I really want to see is these three things : harsher, (and hence cheaper) prisons that either deter crime, or make it economically viable to lock up the worst offenders for a long time; a legal framework that permits long sentencing for the worst crimes; and judges who hand down sentences that properly punish the guilty.
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NOT going to prison isn`t working. Send them to prison with two priorities, the primary being to punish and the secondary to rehabilitate. Decent folk deserve protection from criminals.
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oh come on..they didn’t mean to
they’re of good character really..they had a hard upbringing..they had a bad day
nothing’s their fault!
yawn..this country is absolutely pathetic!
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‘We are making our jails places of hard work, toughening community sentences and making offenders pay back victims and communities.’
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In your dreams MOJ spokesman. The crims are almost queuing up to get into HMP ‘Butlins lookalike’.
They are doing their best to get ‘put inside’ with dozens of repeat offences, but the legal system won’t cooperate.
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In the USA it is three strikes and you are out, in other words you get life if you repeat offend twice. However I don’t believe this rule applies for misdemeanours, just for serious crimes.
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Adopt the American system caught three times and you are in for life. After all they have shown they have no respect for society so lock them up forever without parole or possible sentence reduction. I don’t believe it can cost the general public more than these criminals actions are already costing. Plus sack all the promoters and judges who prefer the soft option, protect the victims and forget the bill of human rights unless you consider it from the victims point as it is law and the criminals have already made the choice to be lawless and have rejected the standards of the general law abiding society.
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