Letter: Home Secretary's crime proposals are short-sighted

Sir: So Michael Howard has set the agenda for dealing with crimes committed by young people and has proposed new criteria for the granting of bail ('Howard fires 27 shots at crime', 7 October). Perhaps not surprisingly, his 'programme of action against crime' relies heavily on increased use of imprisonment.

The Home Secretary sets the agenda, but it is, of course, the courts that implement it. If Parliament acts on the proposals outlined in the Home Secretary's conference speech, the responsibility will rest on judges and magistrates to assess those occasions when imprisonment - as a sentence for an offence or for the purpose of remand - is deemed necessary.

All the evidence suggests that the numbers are far fewer than the tabloid press and Tory conference would have us believe. However, since the right-wing political U- turn on criminal justice policy earlier this year, the behaviour of sentencers has been to follow this lead with a consequent increase of approximately 6,000 in the prison population since February, and remand prisoners now accounting for more than 20 per cent of the total prison population, with more than 10,000 incarcerated.

The Eighties and early Nineties witnessed a dawning recognition that imprisonment for the majority of offenders is an unnecessary and damaging course of action. Careful plans were laid for a more rational criminal justice policy, with greater use of community sentences and appropriate remands on bail. All of this planning now appears to have been swept aside as we march backwards once again in another ill-informed attempt to crack down on crime.

Yours faithfully,

MIKE WORTHINGTON

Chief Probation Officer

Northumbria Probation Service

Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne