STRAW PLAN TO TAG MORE EX-INMATES

A shake-up in sentencing so that middle-ranking criminals no longer just walk out of prison and back into crime was last night proposed by the home secretary, Jack Straw.

Encouraged by the initial success of electronic tagging, Mr Straw said he was looking at plans for a "seamless sentence" which meant many more offenders leaving prison would be tagged and forced to attend courses in anger management, drug and alcohol addiction, or sex therapy.

His plan is expected to be underpinned by a demand by the lord chief justice, Lord Bingham, today for the courts to be given powers to order violent and sex offenders to have treatment while they are in jail.  Those who refused would face longer sentences.

This would be a significant change for the criminal justice system, and would end the situation where, for example, Gary Glitter could be jailed for four months for child porn offences but receive no treatment in prison.

The prison population is a record 68,000-plus and is forecast to rise by a further 4,000.

Mr Straw told an international probation conference in London: "We need to think about ways of joining up custodial and community penalties, so that we can deal more effectively both with those who in the first instance do not necessarily need a prison sentence, and those who do need such a sentence but who might also need more targeted intervention on release.

"Some have suggested a seamless sentence served partly in custody and partly in the community under strict licence conditions - aided by new technology, such as tagging.  It must make sense that if an offender is undergoing a programme designed to help him control his anger he should be able to continue that programme whether he is in custody or in the community".  Those who failed to attend the compulsory courses would face a swift return to jail.

Mr Straw did not specify which type of offenders would be affected by this new sentence.  But many more prisoners would be involved than the 16,000 who have been tagged and released a few weeks early under the home detention curfew scheme.

Mr Straw also defended his proposal to rename the probation service as the community punishment and rehabilitation service after the change was attacked in the Lords on Monday.  The former Tory home secretary, Lord Hurd, said the name change had provoked ridicule and resentment.

But Mr Straw said the service deserved a title which ensured that everybody was clear as to what its business really was.