Prisoners could earn early parole through good behaviour and working

A review of prison sentencing in England and Wales needs to be open to all ideas, including seeing prisoners earn an earlier parole hearing through working and good behaviour, according to the Justice Secretary.

Shabana Mahmood has been on a fact-finding mission to Texas, which introduced a similar scheme in 2011.

She was accompanied by one of her Conservative predecessors David Gauke, who is leading a review on sentencing for the Labour Government.

“We’ve got to be open to all potential future constructions of sentences. If you’re going to think about incentivised behaviour, obviously it’s a carrot and a stick, isn’t it,” Ms Mahmood told The Daily Telegraph about the review.

Prisoners in Texas can earn credits through working during the week and keeping a clean disciplinary record.

Credits could earn earlier parole hearings via work, training and education under any scheme in England and Wales, the Telegraph reports, with sentences increased for anyone who refuses employment opportunities.

“If you’re going down the road of incentivisation, actually that might mean some things no longer become automatic,” the Justice Secretary said.

“But we would have to consider carefully how you would take the best learning from the law and read across to our system because our arrangements are different.”

She said she had visited Texas because “they’ve turned things” around with lower re-offending rates.

Mr Gauke said incentivising people over some time allowed a “more considered approach to assessing their behaviour”.

Most prisoners in England and Wales are released on licence after 40%, 50% or 60% of fixed-term sentences.

Ms Mahmood told The Times she would “find a way” to make sure any plans to make prisoners work were not blocked by “obstacles” including human rights legislation”.

Last week, the Independent Sentencing Review issued a report which said longer jail terms have been a “knee-jerk” policy response to show action by successive governments, leading to an overwhelmed and ineffective system.

The “unstrategic manner” of increasing sentences over decades has also meant ways to cut crime and reduce reoffending have been overlooked as other aims of sentencing criminals, it said.