Our prisons are full up, there is no more room. Judges have been told not to send any more people to jail, for now. But if you look at the media coverage of this story, it gives the impression that people convicted of serious crimes are just going to be let off.

The newspapers are saying burglars and rapists are going to be "set free", but that is a distortion of the facts. Their sentencing has been delayed, that's all. They have not been given a free pardon. The word temporarily is missing from the media headlines. They are temporarily free.

As we know, it already takes years for cases to come to court, if digital devices need to be checked, but that doesn't mean those people were "set free", it just means their sentencing is delayed.

There are things that could be done, to improve the situation, but the number of community sentences handed out has been falling. Other countries in Europe use house arrest much more widely than we do. Low risk people could just be tagged and sent hom with a curfew, rather than being jailed.

At the same time, it was only a few years ago, that the number of people being monitored under mappa, exceeded the number of people in prison for the first time. There are 90,000 mappas. Most of them are SO.

The courts are overloaded, probation are short staffed and the police under resourced, yet we are spending thousands of man hours every year, dragging low rsk online offenders through the courts and then visiting them at home for the next ten years. No wonder shoplifting has now effectively been legalised and they don't have enough police officers to attend every burglary anymore. Their priorities are all wrong.