'Bed and breakfast' short jail terms cost £50,000 a year per inmate and should be scrapped, Justice Secretary says

Transcript

00:00 Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has said that short jail terms cost the typical taxpayer

00:07 as much as £50,000 a year per inmate. He went on to say that shorter prison sentences

00:12 should be scrapped in order to save the taxpayer money. Chalk suggested that low-level criminals

00:17 should instead be rehabilitated where possible and that serious offenders should rather be

00:22 kept behind bars longer. When talking to LBC News, Chalk said, "It's not just that society

00:28 is having the original offence, but if prisoners are banged up for very short sentences, then

00:34 society is also having to pay for bed and breakfast at a cost of £47,000 or £48,000

00:40 a year. This comes after a new sentencing bill was announced last autumn in response

00:45 to the continued overcrowding crisis in prisons." And so, is it time for lenient jail terms

00:50 to be scrapped in order to save money or are we already too lenient as a nation on offenders?