Brown attacked on prisons

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Shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert will accuse the Prime Minister of using early release and watered-down sentences to try to bring down numbers behind bars.

Mr Herbert, who is leading a Tory review of prison policy, will set out proposals to sell off large Victorian town-centre jails for redevelopment, and build small new local prisons with a focus on rehabilitating offenders.

Conservatives will "break the cycle of re-offending by the most radical shake-up of prisons in two centuries", he will say.

Figures due for publication on Friday are expected to show that the number of prisoners freed 18 days early under End of Custody Licence has passed 10,000 since the scheme was introduced in June - almost halfway to the predicted total of 25,000.

Conservatives claim that Mr Brown is planning to restrict judges' use of open-ended sentences, introduced by Tony Blair just two years ago.

They also say he aims to block magistrates from handing out suspended prison terms, in the hope of matching the inmate population with the number of cell spaces available.

They point to the welcome Justice Secretary Jack Straw gave to recent comments from Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips, who said that "some method must be found of linking resources to the setting of the sentencing framework".

Mr Herbert are set to reject the argument that the prisons are full of minor offenders who would be better dealt with by use of community sentences.

But he will say that overcrowded prisons - currently holding 81,454 inmates in England and Wales, 300 short of capacity - are getting in the way of rehabilitation work and fostering reoffending.