A welcome first step

IT is hard to think of another modest reform that has had such a positive impact. By not sending offenders to prison for not paying fines, the number of people jailed was cut by almost 40% last year. This is a spectacular improvement in the administration of justice and has reduced the pressure on a strained prison system. Provisional figures show there were 9,332 committals in 2017, compared to 15,099 in 2016, a drop of 38%. Figures are down 46% when compared to 2015, when there were 17,206 committals.

It also goes some way towards restoring the integrity of a system that had fallen to somewhere pretty close to a