Britain to spare minor offenders jail in effort to ease prison overcrowding

In an effort to ease prison overcrowding, offenders in England and Wales who are given jail sentences of less than a year will usually have those sentences suspended and be required to do community service instead. This comes as the prison population in the country has doubled in the last 30 years. The government plans to increase prison capacity by 20,000 places by the mid-2020s at a cost of £4 billion.