Member

Some may disagree and argue that the dangerous and repeat offenders I have highlighted in these amendments should serve their sentences safely in the community. I raise this point to show that, even for noble Lords who hold such views, this reasoning fails on two separate counts. If the justification for an offender’s suspended sentence is that prisons are overcrowded and they should therefore remain in the community then that does not stand to scrutiny, as probation services are already so overstretched that they cannot manage the new influx safely outside of prison. If the justification for their suspended sentence is rehabilitation then that argument also fails, because meaningful rehabilitation simply cannot take place under these strained conditions. All that would be achieved is the public’s exposure to unrehabilitated criminals for whom there are no bars to reoffending. Whatever one’s reasoning for suspended sentences may be, it will inevitably collapse when faced with the twin issues of dangerous repeat offenders and a struggling Probation Service.