Crackdown targets violence and burglaries

PATRICIA WYNN DAVIES

Political Correspondent

Michael Howard's proposals, outlined to the Tory party conference yesterday, would see the end of automatic early release for prisoners, a tough new sentencing regime for violence and sex offences and, for the first time, minimum sentences for burglars and hard-drug dealers.

To the longest standing ovation of the conference so far, the Home Secretary declared that under White Paper proposals covering England and Wales, to be published next year, "model prisoners" would get a little time off their sentences for good behaviour.

"Everyone else should serve their sentence in full ... no more half-time sentences for full-time crimes," Mr Howard said. The final shape of the crackdown will be decided after consultation on the as yet uncosted White Paper, and included in a crime Bill in the parliamentary session after next.

But under radical new proposals for the sentencing of serious violent and sexual offenders, Mr Howard said there was a "strong case" for saying that anyone convicted for the second time should automatically receive a life sentence. These prisoners would only be released when they no longer posed a risk to the public, he said, adding: "If they continued to pose a risk, life really would mean life."

The White Paper will suggest that burglars and hard-drug dealers be subject to minimum sentences on a third offence - reflecting the American "three strikes and you're out" policy. Mr Howard said: "Burglary is a foul crime. It defiles people's memories." He added: "The same is true of dealers in hard drugs. They prey on the young, the lonely and the vulnerable."

Mr Howard told last week's Police Superintendents' Association annual conference that he was "surprised" at a survey showing that only 10 per cent of first-time burglars were jailed by magistrates' courts. In crown courts the average sentence for burglars with 10 or more previous convictions was 17.6 months. A new minimum is likely to be several years more. The move could bring some lower sentences, because of the abolition of early release and because some might sentence at the minimum. While conceding that risk at a briefing for journalists, Mr Howard insisted that the overall effect would be stiffer sentences. At present, the only minimum sentences are the mandatory life sentence for murder and the one-year automatic ban for drink-driving.

The maximum sentence for serious violent and sexual crimes is life imprisonment. But, said Mr Howard, offenders did not always get life, and could offend again. Under the Home Secretary's proposals, the net would be spread widely, imposing a life sentence for second offences of attempted murder, threat or conspiracy to murder, manslaughter, infanticide, and manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.

The same would apply to wounding or any other act which endangers life, rape, going to a crime equipped with a weapon, and unlawful sexual intercourse or incest with a girl under-13.

t Police chiefs want much of the country's criminal law - some of which they believe is "legal gobbledegook" - to be rewritten into plain English. They believe that vague and confusingly written laws have led to wrong judgments and made the legal system inaccessible.

Chief constables are to press ministers to introduce changes to the wording of the laws, many more than 100 years-old, in England and Wales and introduce a single criminal code.