Sweeping plans to toughen up community penalties and restore confidence in the criminal justice system will be published this week.

Sweeping plans to toughen up community penalties and restore confidence in the criminal justice system will be published this week. Under the proposals, offenders serving community sentences could be required to wear jackets identifying that they are being punished for breaking the law. The plans have been drawn up by Louise Casey, former head of the Government's Respect Unit. The Guardian reported that while they appeared to have the backing of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, some ministers close to PM Gordon Brown believed they were too punitive and would play to Conservative claims of a "broken society". Other measures were said to include the appointment of a public commissioner to represent victims of crime and giving police community support officers powers to detain and issue fixed penalty notices for disorder. Community punishments would be redesignated as "community payback" and responsibility for running them transferred from the probation service to a new organisation focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation. The courts service would be encouraged to set up websites to publicise convictions and sentences passed, while responsibility for publishing crime statistics would be taken away from Home Office ministers in order to restore credibility.
Officials however played down suggestions that the report would call for the publication of the "conviction posters" showing people who have been found guilty of a crime. Ms Casey was commissioned by Mr Brown to draw up the proposals after the Respect Unit was disbanded last year. A Cabinet Office spokesman confirmed the report was "due to be published shortly".