The visit will coincide with the launch of the government's national crime plan. It will focus on tackling the hardcore of 100,000 persistent offenders believed by ministers to be responsible for about half of all crime in England and Wales. Tougher sentences It will propose moves to give tougher sentences to repeat offenders, while improving prison regimes to offer more basic education and skills training both before and after prisoners are released. A 700m programme over the next three years will see 2,500 more prison places created to house the most hardened criminals. One third of that money will be spent on rehabilitation programmes.
Crime is likely to be a key election issue.
The national crime plan is the latest in a long list of measures recently announced by Jack Straw to crack down on offenders. It follows government research which found that almost half of these offenders are under the age of 21, while two out of three use hard drugs. More than half have no qualifications at all, and three out of four were unemployed when they were last arrested. Rehabilitation Ministers now believe longer prison sentences for such offenders, under a more enlightened jail regime, could offer a genuine chance of rehabilitation and less risk of re-offending. Under the plan, persistent offenders will receive longer sentences.