Green Paper details plans for fundamental changes to the criminal justice system

Despite a 50% increase in the budget for prisons and managing offenders in the last ten years, almost half of all adult offenders released from custody reoffend within a year as well as 75% of youth custody offenders.

Key findings from a study of 1,435 reception prisoners in England and Wales highlight that drug dependency, mental illness and poor education fuel criminal behaviour.

This Green Paper seeks to set out an intelligent sentencing framework in line with more effective rehabilitation and a Crime Strategy will be released in early 2011.

Plans for reform include:

• Six new rehabilitation programmes to be piloted on a payment by results basis.
• Treatment rather than prison will be the option for the less serious offenders with mental illness and drug dependency.
• More straightforward sentencing alongside greater transparency from the courts.

These proposed reforms will seek to make prisons places of hard work and industry. There will be a greater use of strenuous, unpaid work as part of a community sentence alongside tagging and curfews. There will also be a greater focus on the enforcement and collection of fines and a much stronger emphasis on compensation for victims of crime.

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