Cherie Booth tells politicians to stop 'hysterically' hyping crime

The "hysterical rhetoric of politicians attempting to ride the tiger of public opinion" is fuelling the fear of crime, according to a commission headed by Cherie Booth. The Commission on English Prisons Today, led by the wife of the former prime minister, protested over the record prison population reached under the government led until last year by Tony Blair.

It condemned the "current Titanic course" of building super-prisons holding 2,500 offenders.

Mr Blair boasted before he stood down about longer sentences being handed down to offenders. But the commission, which includes academics, penal reformers and journalists, has reached a different conclusion.

Calling for a fundamental overhaul of the criminal justice system, the report, out today, said politicians were trapped by the demand to lock prisoners "out of sight and out of mind". It argued they were "caught on the unending treadmill of satisfying a perceived public clamour for prison-based punitiveness that can never truly be appeased". The commission, set up by the Howard League for Penal Reform, said people would be better informed about the criminal justice system if they could relate to it. It said most jails could come under council control and more courts be sited locally.

The commission said: "The lack of control communities have over criminal justice, the distant disposals of court and prison, the hysterical rhetoric of politicians attempting to ride the tiger of public opinion – all contribute to a rising fear of crime and a sense of societal breakdown."