“PRISON works,” the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, told the Conservative Party Conference in 1993. “It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers, and rapists — and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice. . . This may mean that more people will go to prison. I do not flinch from that.” During the three decades since, the prison population has risen by 93 per cent, and currently it stands at 87,000, the Prison Reform Trust reports. At the present rate, it could rise as high as 114,800.

But has incarcerating numbers on this scale made society safer, and, crucially, has it made prisoners think twice before reoffending? Speaking in the House of Lords on 23 October, the Prisons Minister, Lord Timpson, said no on both counts. The reoffending rate for the average prisoner was close to 50 per cent, costing the taxpayer more than £22 billion a year, he said. The sentencing review that he has commissioned, chaired by the former Justice Secretary David Gauke, is, therefore, much needed. Among Mr Gauke’s tasks is that of suggesting ways to rehabilitate offenders outside prison and encourage them to turn their backs on crime. This is not about being “soft on crime” or simply allowing prisoners to go unpunished: the most dangerous and prolific offenders will remain incarcerated. For those convicted of lesser crimes, being under house arrest is hardly a holiday, and technology enables offenders to be monitored (for example, with an ankle tag and sensors in their home). Furthermore, offenders serving their “time” outside prison can work to pay back the individuals and communities whom they have harmed — and they are less likely to reoffend. “That cuts crime, with fewer victims and safer streets,” Lord Timpson said.

Under a reforming Government committed to reducing the number of prisoners, the part played by churches in caring for prisoners and ex-offenders might need to change. As more sentences are served in the community, thought will need to be given both to victims’ safety and to how chaplaincy to prisoners should evolve. Ministry to offenders may well take place increasingly in the home — perhaps in the presence of friends and family — rather than inside prison walls. Whether, away from a prison chapel, offenders can worship in their parish church will need to be considered. Christian charities such as Caring for Prison Leavers already do sterling work to help those who have been released, and will perhaps need to expand their remit to work with offenders who are serving time in the home.

We hope that the sentencing review is fruitful and leads to lasting change. Christians prize justice; crime matters, and a sentence should be served. But it is abundantly clear that, for many offenders, the best place to serve that sentence is in the community. Prison is not working. As the former prison governor Professor John Podmore has said: “We should be locking up people who we’re scared of, not mad at.”