Criminals may serve sentences at house in digital prisons utilizing new expertise

Criminals could be ordered to serve their sentences at home instead of in jail under plans to overhaul the prison system, the Justice Secretary has said.

Shabana Mahmood will on Tuesday announce a major review of sentencing to find new ways to punish offenders and deal with overflowing prisons.

Virtual prisons could be created using technology like tagging to keep offenders under arrest in their homes. Other tech is also being explored such as special wrist watches that “nudge” offenders about appointments with probation officers or mental health services.

Ms Mahmood said she believes in prison but said the Government “must increase the range of punishments we use” to prevent ministers from being forced to free prisoners early from jail.

Currently, after they have served some of their sentence in prison, offenders can be monitored using tags to keep track of curfews, their location or to monitor alcohol consumption by measuring the wearer’s sweat. Following the review, electronic monitoring could be used more widely with judges able to sentence offenders to house arrest.

Officials are also looking at copying Texas’s prison reforms that allow prisoners to earn credits for good behaviour or for taking part in courses such as drug programmes to reduce their time in jail.

Ms Mahmood said: “We have an opportunity now to reshape and redesign what punishment outside of a prison looks like. I believe in punishment. I believe in prison, but I also believe that we must increase the range of punishments we use.

“And that those prisoners who earn the right to turn their lives around should be encouraged to do so. The Sentencing Review will make sure prison and punishment work – and that there is always a cell waiting for dangerous offenders.”

Speaking about different forms of punishment, she said: “Theoretically a judge could hand down a sentence of house arrest. I’m sure the review is going to want to look at all the different mechanisms that are out there to monitor offenders in the community, to supervise them effectively and then also to nudge their behaviour towards a rehabilitation activity that we know reduces re-offending.”

The Justice Secretary was forced to announce an early release scheme just days after being elected in July, as free jail spaces plummeted to under 100 this summer. It comes as another 1,100 prisoners will be released early on Tuesday after around 1,700 were let out early last month. The early release scheme was expected to buy 12 months before prison space ran out again – but this was cut to nine months after scores of people were jailed during the summer riots. Prisons are now set to reach breaking point again next summer.

While the Labour government has pledged to deliver 14,000 new prison places, the jail population is expected to increase by 4,500 offenders a year over the coming years. The launching of the sentencing review marks a shift away from prison expansion to focus on wider issues facing the criminal justice system.

Evidence already suggests short sentences don’t work, with more than half of adults released from prison sentences of less than 12 months going on to reoffend. It is understood the review will consider scrapping short sentences of less than six months.

The review will also look into longer sentences and the use of minimum sentences, as well as how sentencing is used for offences primarily committed against women and girls. Creating specific domestic abuse offences will be considered, as currently there is no criminal offence for it, rather it falls across various offences including harassment, criminal damage or stalking.

Former Tory Justice Secretary David Gauke, who has been appointed to chair the sentencing review, told ITV News on Monday evening: “Prison population has doubled over the last thirty years. We have the highest incarceration rate of any Western European country, and reoffending rates are too high. We should look at whether sentencing policy can be more smartly applied to ensure that we can reduce reoffending rates as well as properly punishing those who need to be punished and protecting the public.”

In a speech in 2019, the then-Lord Chancellor said there was “a very strong case to abolish sentences of six months or less altogether, with some closely defined exceptions, and put in their place, a robust community order regime”.

Mark Day, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said the sentencing review is “a vital opportunity to reset the dial on decades of failure in penal policymaking”. Law Society of England and Wales president Richard Atkinson added: “It is high time for an examination of alternatives to the use of custody, which is an expensive and often counterproductive form of punishment.”