Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues tht locking up more people is a populist ploy that doesn’t cut crime. Instead, he says, we should focus on rigorous community sentences instead. Here’s an excerpt:

It should be a given that important matters of public policy are based on evidence and research, rather than political whim. Why, then, is the field of criminal justice uniquely and scandalously divorced from this obvious rule? … Both [Labour and Tories] continue to try to frighten the public into the arms of their party. It is this politics of fear that has created the dismal bidding war between politicians and the press on crime, a loss of faith in the police and judiciary, and the systematic demonisation of young people. …

We now spend 11 times more on locking children up than on projects to stop them sliding into crime in the first place. Yet incarceration just increases the likelihood of turning them into serious adult offenders. There are more people in the colleges of crime we call our prisons than ever before. More places are being built. Sentences are getting longer. But it is not working. Reoffending remains sky-high. Nine out of every 10 young men sentenced to a first short custodial sentence get out of prison and commit more crime. Yet the politics of fear dictates that both the Tories and Labour are pledging to send more people to prison for longer just because it sounds tough. Liberal Democrats would not build more prisons. We are the only party brave enough to suggest that rigorous community sentences are more effective than short prison sentences. …

Instead of posturing on penalties, the Liberal Democrats will focus on proven methods of catching criminals and cutting crime. We will put criminal justice on an evidence-based footing by establishing a National Crime Reduction Agency to test properly what cuts crime.

You can read Chris’s article in full here.