Nuisance thieves and repeat offenders should be banned from shops and high streets, an MP has said in a bid to crack down on crime.
Telford MP Shaun Davies says ancillary orders including banning offenders from shops and high streets are "part of the answer" to reduce crime in the region.
Fellow county MP Stuart Anderson also spoke during the debate on Tuesday (June 3), warning that scrapping short-term prison sentences would not help to reduce crime.
00:00Thank you Mr Speaker. South Shropshire residents would expect that high street crime is dealt with and there is proportionate sentencing and appropriate deterrence to deal with this. How will removing short term prison sentences achieve any of this?
00:18Well he should know that 60% of all people who are given a short custodial sentence go on to re-offend within the year. So clearly the system we have at the moment does not work and we cannot simply sit back and keep doing things that we know are resulting in increased re-offending and therefore creating more crime in the very communities that we all want to protect.
00:41We have to look at interventions that are going to make a difference and tough community punishment does have better rates on reducing re-offending than short sentences do and we will be consulting with members across the House as we prepare our bill in the coming weeks to make sure that we have a strong package on unpaid work and other measures designed to toughen up community punishment.
01:01Thank you Mr Speaker. As part of the sentencing will the Lord Chancellor agree with me that ancillary orders including banning offenders from individual shops and high streets are part of the answer too and we need police officers and police forces together with the CPS to apply to those courts and the courts to take that part of the sentencing exercise that they do when an offender appears before them in court.
01:24My honourable friend raises a really important point. He is absolutely right that so called ancillary orders often referred to as travel bans, bans from seeing football and bans relating to ability to go to particular areas are an important part of the package of measures that the Gawke review has recommended.
01:42We have accepted those in principle and I look forward to working with him and other colleagues as we draw up our package of proposals for the upcoming sentencing.
