‘Significant’ fall in the numbers being jailed

The number of people sent to prison will be “significantly” down this year, marking a reversal of years of record levels of committals.

Official figures show there were nearly 15,000 committals to the end of November, about 1,000 fewer than in the same period last year.

Based on Dec 2012 figures, the final number of committals is expected to be under 16,000 for the whole of 2013, compared to more than 17,000 for each of the last three years.