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Burglars have been convicted of up to 27 break-ins before being jailed, according to data obtained by The Telegraph that exposes the scale of soft justice.

They are escaping prison despite laws requiring judges to immediately jail
them for a third offence, according to data obtained under Freedom of Information laws.

Criminals are also being convicted of up to eight knife offences before
being jailed, even though “one strike and out” laws require immediate
prison terms for a second offence.

Overall, the number of “super-prolific” criminals who have been spared
prison even though they have been convicted of more than 100 previous
crimes has tripled in the past 15 years to more than 250 a year.

The disclosures prompted demands by Priti Patel, the former home
secretary, for automatic jail sentences for prolific offenders amid dismay
at the soft justice by UK courts.

Ministers considered automatic prison sentences for prolific criminals
when drawing up the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act two years
ago.

They were advocated by Chris Philp, then a justice minister, but were
rejected by Sir Robert Buckland, then the justice secretary. It was judged
too difficult to define the cut-off point for jailing a prolific offender
whose crimes were often low-level theft, drugs or anti-social behaviour
below the threshold for prison.

The Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) internal research shows just nine per cent
of offenders are “prolific”, but they account for more than 10 million
offences - around half of all the crimes dealt with by courts each year in England and Wales.

Yet the MoJ figures obtained by The Telegraph show there were 3,377 “super-prolific” criminals in 2021 who were not jailed, even though they
had each been previously convicted of more than 50 offences. Of these, 258
had been convicted of more than 100 individual previous offences, but were still not jailed.

“A simple scheme targeted at prolific offenders with clear law enforcement measures to lock them up is required,” said Ms Patel.

“It is disgraceful to see the courts letting so many off with soft
sentences. Laws have been put in place to send offenders to prison when
they commit multiple crimes and victims of crime are being let down by
judges and magistrates failing to use these laws to keep our streets safe.

“Offenders who carry knives and who steal are dangerous crooks who should
be locked up and not set free to roam our streets and commit more crimes.”

“Our police officers work tirelessly to bring offenders to justice and it
is dreadful to see that work being undermined by the courts failing to
jail crooks, burglars and dangerous offenders.”

Harvey Redgrave, a former adviser to Sir Tony Blair at Number 10 and chief executive of crime consultancy Crest Advisory, said: “These statistics
paint an extremely worrying picture of a justice system that is at crisis point.

“There is little point in politicians talking ‘tough’ and passing new laws
to toughen sentences when the ones we already have are being ignored.

“It is an established fact that a small minority of prolific offenders
drive a large proportion of total crime. These individuals are recycled
through the system endlessly yet are neither being appropriately punished,
nor rehabilitated.

“Rather than treating every offence and every offender the same way, the justice system should prioritise lifetime offenders with a new targeted approach.”

He cited the prolific and priority offenders (PPO) scheme, launched in
2004 but since scrapped, which slashed offending rates by up to 62 per
cent. It targeted a cohort of serial offenders by bringing together the
police, Crown Prosecution Service, courts and probation.

The Telegraph asked the MoJ to provide data on how many times an offender
for 14 different crimes was convicted before they were jailed for the same offence.

It revealed that in 2020, the highest number of previous convictions for possessing a knife was eight. In 2021, it was seven, five in 2019 and
seven in 2018.

This is despite the fact that anyone caught with a knife for a second time should automatically receive a six-month jail sentence under section 28 of
the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015.

For burglary, the figures were significantly higher. In 2019, the highest number of previous burglaries for which a criminal was convicted before
being jailed was 27. In 2020, it was 20, in 2018, it was 18, and in 2021,
it was 13.

Sir Robert said there were problems with automatic jailing of prolific offenders. One was that the offences they were committing were often minor
such as thefts, drug-related offences or or anti-social behaviour that did
not reach the threshold for jail.

“The question mark really was whether there came a moment where you
declared them a prolific offender and gave them a longer sentence,” he
said. “It's not an easy thing to do bearing in mind the fact that unless
the issues are linked to a particular crime, like dangerousness, it's
difficult for the court to add more on just on the basis that the person
is a prolific.”

Sir Robert said an alternative could be “prolific offender orders” to
strike at the root causes and prevent repeat offending by placing the
criminal under close supervision, with probation officers “in their face
every day”. On top of this, courts could have been told to add “extra increments” on prolific offenders’ sentences.

But, recalling the debate over the plans, he said: “As usual, we came up against the issue of resources and timing and I wanted to get on with some major reforms which I did. So it's not something I wanted to file away and forget about. It was something I wanted to return to.”

Instead, the Government tightened up the legislation by telling judges to automatically jail repeat knife criminals, burglars and Class A drug
offenders unless there were “exceptional” reasons not to do so.

“These harsher sentences will see more criminals convicted of repeat knife
and burglary offences face time behind bars,” said an MoJ spokesman.

<https://news.yahoo.com/soft-justice-burglars-convicted-27-221620739.html>

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