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Thousands of burglars and shoplifters should be spared jail, the Liberal Democrats have said.
A motion at the party’s annual conference in Brighton next week will urge Sir Keir Starmer to scrap most sentences of less than a year. Rishi Sunak’s government had drafted similar plans to ditch the majority of jail terms under 12 months to ease the prisons overcrowding crisis.
Under the Liberal Democrat proposals, offenders including burglars, shoplifters and thieves would walk free on the condition that they carry out unpaid community work.
The motion, tabled by Alistair Carmichael, the party’s justice spokesman, will lay the blame on the previous Conservative government, claiming it had “plunged our prisons into crisis”.
It reads: “Reducing reoffending is key for cutting crime, keeping people safe and ultimately saving money. To achieve this aim, the effective rehabilitation of offenders should be a core priority of the prison system.
“Conference calls on the new Government to implement a presumption against short sentences of 12 months or less to facilitate rehabilitation in the community.”
The number of spare prison places in male jails dropped to 300 on Monday, near the lowest number on record. The early release of some 1,750 prisoners took place the following day.
The Liberal Democrat motion says the prison system across England and Wales is “dangerously close to capacity” and has been worsened by a staff recruitment shortage.
It adds: “Put cutting reoffending at the heart of [the] plan to end the prisons crisis, including by improving the provision of training, education and work opportunities in prison.
“Bring forward a new strategy for the prisons estate to ensure that all prisons are fit for purpose and able to provide the rehabilitation services needed to cut reoffending.”
The Liberal Democrats are also urging Sir Keir to ensure that violent offenders, including the perpetrators of domestic abuse cannot be released. The current plans to release prisoners early were intended to exclude domestic abusers, but charities have warned that many have slipped through the cracks.
A Liberal Democrat spokesman said: “Even the Conservatives, who trashed our prisons with overcrowding and long waiting lists, agreed in government that some short sentences were a waste of time.
“All evidence shows that punishments served in the community for minor offences are far more effective at stopping reoffending and cutting crime.”
Sir Ed Davey’s party holds its annual four-day gathering from Saturday, with its membership having grown to more than 90,000 following its success at the general election. The Liberal Democrats won 72 seats on July 4, up from just 15.
Sir Ed will give a keynote speech next Tuesday, setting out his vision now that the party is the third-largest in the Commons.
While in Brighton, he is also expected to take part in a number of the eye-catching stunts that significantly raised the profile of his election campaign.
These included photo opportunities in which Sir Ed fell multiple times from a paddleboard into Windermere, slid down a water slide and cycled down a steep hill in Wales.