Lib Dems gamble over burglary

Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate Simon Hughes will take a political gamble today with a call for burglars and other non-violent offenders to be spared prison.

He will urge greater use of community sentences in a break with the "prison works" philosophy followed by successive Tory and Labour home secretaries.

He will call for the use of hi-tech devices, including electronic tags and mobile phone trackers, to ensure that convicts sentenced to community work turn up and do it.

Mr Hughes, also Lib-Dem shadow home secretary, will speak out at his party's annual conference in Brighton.

His speech, at a fringe meeting, risks overshadowing the rapturous welcome that leader Charles Kennedy will receive in the main hall following last week's by-election triumph in Brent East.

Aides admitted that Mr Hughes has a fight on his hands to shift public opinion, which favours tough sentences for most offenders, including burglars.

A senior party spokesman said the aim was to "transform the debate on criminal justice" by persuading voters that imprisonment is an expensive and ineffective form of punishment.

The phrase "prison works" was coined by Tory home secretary Michael Howard and has been broadly followed by the current Home Secretary, David Blunkett.

When the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, called earlier this year for fewer burglars to be jailed he was slapped down by Mr Blunkett.

Lib-Dem aides pointed out that Britain's prison population had risen sharply in recent years to a record 74,000, bringing severe overcrowding in many jails.

It costs taxpayers £38,000 to keep a convict in prison for a year, and rates of reoffending can be higher than with community sentences.

Mr Hughes, who will admit that the public sees community sentences as a soft option, is to examine ways of getting them seen as a tougher alternative than jail.

He said in his draft speech: "Prison is actually the soft option that locks criminals up for a few months in an all-expenses-paid accommodation with three meals a day, a gym, pool table and a telly. We need to take the money lavished on prison places and use it to turn the probation service into a real front-line against crime.

"We need new-style community sentences that make the most of the latest technology to track offenders' movements, rigorous supervision, more challenging work and rehabilitation programmes and clear penalties if offenders break the terms of their sentences."

Under the Lib-Dem plans, a Victims' Fund would be created to cut the time crime victims have to wait before they receive compensation.

In a separate move, Mr Hughes is preparing for the launch of his mayoral campaign tomorrow by unveiling a key plank of his manifesto: a "minimum policing guarantee" which would allocate at least eight dedicated police personnel to every London neighbourhood, however crime-free.

Four would be officers, the other four would be support officers or wardens. They would be assigned by council ward.

Each officer would have to serve a four-year stint in the patch, so that residents knew them by name and were encouraged to report more crimes.

The pledge would tie down 5,200 Metropolitan Police staff. The Lib-Dems will claim it could be delivered within existing police numbers, but will concede that it could keep some officers or wardens away from specialist duties elsewhere.