I reproduce the full ten-point plan from the report below:

First three months

1. Emergency measures to reduce prison population pressures, including considering re-setting the automatic release point for most prisoners sentenced to four years or less, releasing them after they have served 40% of their sentence in prison, rather than 50%; and

2. Once adequate prison capacity is realised, immediate action to reduce the Crown Court backlog, setting a clear ambition in partnership with the senior judiciary to speed up Crown Court cases to pre-pandemic averages by the end of the Parliament, in part by introducing temporary measures to start eating into outstanding cases.

Tackle the highest harms

3. Improve our end to end response to sexual violence and domestic abuse, by rolling out effective police and prosecutor joint working, expanding the use of specialist sexual violence and domestic abuse specialisation across our courts, and fast-tracking Crown Court rape cases;
4. Drive down violent crime, including by deploying proven ‘precision’ policing strategies like hot-spots policing, investing in evidence-led prevention and diversion to keep children away from crime and gang involvement, and legislating to tackle the sale of zombie knives, machetes and swords;
5. Slow the revolving door of prolific offending by investing in high-quality drug treatment, spreading intensive community supervision for prolific offenders including repeat shoplifters, and diverting women away from short prison sentences.

Act smarter

6.Prioritise early intervention, including swiftly resolving more ‘quality of life’ and anti-social behaviour cases out of court, providing improved alternatives to remand, and by piloting intensive supervision courts for children;

7. Rethink our courts, keeping more serious cases in our magistrates’ courts in line with other common lawc ountries and deploying magistrates to hear quality of life cases in their communities, all to help reserve Crown Courts for the most serious cases;

8. Strengthen community justice, by commissioning the voluntary sector to deliver rapid, standalone unpaid work for ‘quality of life’ crimes, expanding and professionalising the probation workforce and, once the probation system is stable, working towards its devolution;

9. Set up an independent commission into drugs policy, using insights from citizens’ juries to make recommendations to Government by the middle of the next Parliament.

National focus

10. Build a new strategic centre, including by creating an independent Institute for Justice to provide annual, independent forecasts of criminal justice capacity and demand (like an Office for Budget Responsibility for justice), and open up the public debate on long-term prison population and capacity options.