Cometh the hour, cometh Nick Clegg. The Independent reports that the Deputy Prime Minister is to announce that
first-time offenders convicted of looting but not given custodial sentences will be forced to do community service in the very streets that they ransacked. The government hopes to ensure that
community sentences are robust, inculcating a sense of responsibility in first-time offenders and insulating them from malign criminal influences. The Probation Service already oversees
similar community service programmes and will do so with this one, which Clegg is calling ‘Community Payback’.
Clegg’s views also allow him to reposition the Liberal Democrats to an extent. The moisture that often characterises his rhetoric has dried on this occasion. He will say this morning:
“Victims of crime are only truly protected if punishment leads to criminals not committing crime again. That’s why those people who behaved so despicably last week should have to look their
victims in the eye.”
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