Sentences aren't harsh enough anyway. To further reduce them would defeat the whole conept of sentencing as a deterrent.

Hamad lone, ex-pat brit, Middle East

Yet another panic measure! It backfired last time and it will again. Prison is not the deterrent it was years ago when there was a stigma attached to being in prison and prison life was austere. Today's prison sentences are like a holiday for the 'lags' who appear to have more rights than the law abiding public. It's a known fact that no matter how much is spent on supposed rehabilitation courses, few succeed to reform their ways and who can blame them with drug dealers earning 100K plus a year. Let's get back to basics and make prisons the fearful places they should be instead of all-inclusive holiday camps paid for by the taxpayer. You may just find reoffending rates fall.

R.B., Leicester,

Why convict anyone at all if we're going to let them go when the prisons get full? The less likely it is that a criminal serves a full sentence, the more likely it is that he will commit a crime. It follows that the earlier we release prisoners to ease crowding the more criminals will be imprisoned, thus maintaining the overcrowding.

Mike Poulsen, Reading, Berkshire

Something else that is full to bursting is Gordon Brown's pile of our tax monies that he keeps secured in The Treasury.

Why don't we hear of a genuine desire and a proposal to reduce that? Or to reduce Welfare payments and the number of people directly employed by the State?

The Country is also full of illegal immigrants and ever increasing numbers of criminals (sometimes, but not always from the same communities). When will the government reduce their numbers?

The present regime seems constantly to be working against the community of law abiding individuals who want to protect themselves, their families and properties from from theft, whether state sponsored or otherwise.

Edwin Thornber, Bucharest,

We in the United States envy your so-called prison "crisis."
You have just over 80,000 total prisoners, we have more than 2.2
million prisoners. One out of every four prisoners in the world is locked in an American jail or prison.

And you want to copy our drug policies?

Kirk Muse, Mesa, ARIZ. USA

This is so sickening. Yet again this government sticks 2 fingers up to victims of crime.

The sentences are already stupidly lenient at the moment. What is needed is more prisons and much tougher punishments like the kind that they have in Singapore, where they dont face the crime problems of this country because the deterrent is so strong unlike soft touch Britain.

Vivek, London,

Before the ministers come up with these wonderful schemes why don't they ask the victims of crime what they think. You have your mother, sister, brother mugged and assaulted and if you are very lucky the police will catch the criminal, there may be a trial at which the offender pleads guilty which means an automatic 33% drop in sentence. You now have to wait to see if the judge think this poor chap did not really mean it and lets them of or if he will pass a sentence most people find to low. So for this hypothetical crime the perpetrator may be sentenced to 2 years, 1 years with parole and now another 20% is deducted.

I find this appalling, we should be punishing criminals and making it very clear if you offend you will suffer as a result.

Our politicians criticize countries like China as they have zero tolerance but I feel far safer in these countries than I ever would in London. Lets start with ZERO tolerance and build more jails.

joseph Kellie, Edinburgh, Scotland

Will the released prisoners be so willing to leave their jail when they realise they are to sit through a recording,played again and again of Jack Straw talking tough.It makes the law abiding laugh, but it may frighten them!

robert everitt, wolverhampton,