Letters | 31 January 2013

Reforming criminal justice

Sir: Crime continues to fall under this government and is now at its lowest level since the crime survey began in 1982. But we can’t be complacent. We still see too many of the same faces going round and round the criminal justice system, as Theodore Dalrymple notes in his article ‘The rehabilitation game’ (26 January).

We are already addressing the problems Dalrymple describes. We are changing the law so every community sentence will include punishment and introducing satellite tagging to keep a much closer eye on persistent and high-risk offenders.

I am looking at the use of cautions. We shouldn’t remove the right for the police to exercise discretion, but the public are right to expect people who commit serious crimes to be brought before a court to face tough justice. We have introduced a new mandatory life sentence for anyone convicted of a second very serious sexual or violent crime.