THE BRITISH Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, unveiled the controversial Crime (Sentences) Bill yesterday. It will introduce minimum sentences for persistent criminals and life sentences for repeat violent offenders.
Launching the Bill, Mr Howard described the proposed changes in sentencing as "the biggest advance against crime this century". The proposals will signal the end of what he called "career criminals".
Except for murder and driving offences, he said, minimum sentences had never been a part of British law. "Drug dealers murder our children, cause the deaths of hundreds and destroy the lives of tens of thousands of the victims of their activity. Our aim is to take the most serious persistent and dangerous offenders out of circulation to prevent them from being able to commit more crime."
However, penal reformers have given the Bill a cool reception claiming that it "side steps the real issues of crisis" in society.
Professor Andrew Rutherford, the Chairman of the Howard League for Penal Reform, criticised the government saying the Bill appeared to reflect the "total indifference to the massive crisis confronting the prison system."
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, Mr John Major, is standing firm on his refusal to accept an offer by the Labour Party Leader, Mr Tony Blair, to help rush a Bill through Parliament which would ban the use of combat knives. The Government has said it is too difficult to legally define a combat knife which would not outlaw the use of kitchen knives.