Short term prison sentences don't work - they are a "college for criminals" - Robert Brown

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 3rd Aug 2009

The punishment of criminals must be based on what works to protect communities and stop persistent offenders reoffending. This is the view of Glasgow MSP Robert Brown.

And Mr. Brown slammed politicians in the Labour and Conservative Parties who want to "talk and sound tough" on crime, but whose policies had totally failed. Sending people to jail for short periods was, he said, a waste of time. It did not protect the public because the three quarters of people given such sentences reoffended very quickly. It did not change their behaviour because there was not enough time to do anything effective.

Robert Brown recently obtained a commitment from the Scottish Government to invest an additional £4 million in community sentences which are widely recognised as more effective in stopping reoffending.

Robert Brown said:

"It is high time there was a sensible debate on crime, based on what works. 90% of prisoners in Polmont Young Offenders Institution have communication and literacy difficulties, and, although precise figures are not kept, many of these have specific learning difficulties.

I think most people see through the way that Labour and Conservative politicians like to talk and sound tough on crime because they think it goes down well with the public. The reality is that short term prison sentences don't work.

Clearly people committing serious crimes need to go to prison for long periods to protect the public, but the prisons are currently hugely overcrowded with short term prisoners. Many short term prisoners come out worse than they went in - prison has rightly been described as a "college for criminals", and the general public know how accurate a description that is.

Of 624 young men in Polmont, no less than 530 of them had been in custody before. That is an extraordinary figure. Whatever else, it is obvious that going to prison has little if any effect on deterring people from committing further crimes.

There is no magic bullet, but the reality is that prison costs the taxpayer £40,000 a year per person and three quarters of them commit another crime within 2 years - many much quicker than that.

People in local communities are, in my experience, interested in what works, rather than what simply sounds tough. It is time to replace many short term sentences by speedy and effective community sentences which will actually make a difference. The SNP Government have proposed this for sentences under 6 months but it would be more manageable to restrict this to sentences under 3 months as Liberal Democrats have argued.

A community sentence costs between £1,000 and £5,000 a head, and offenders are made to work to repay the community for the results of their crime. The £4 million I extracted from the Justice Secretary recently will go some way to improve the speed and effectiveness of community sentences to help, but the SNP Government will need to provide new funding for the increased number of community sentences needed.

What works to reduce crime is helping people to tackle alcohol and drug addiction problems, improving their skills so they can get a job and a structure to their lives and working to change their attitudes."