The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill currently before parliament presents an opportunity to get to grips with a distorted, often ineffective system which places too much store on what imprisonment can achieve.

The damaging effects of populist criminal justice legislation over the past 15 years have left a society where 7% of school children experience their father’s imprisonment and more children are affected by parental imprisonment than by divorce in the family. Today, the prison population is around 85,000. When Ken Clarke was last in charge of prisons and probation in 1992/93 it was less than 45,000.

The ambit of the bill is wide. Many in the legal profession will be focused on proposed changes to the system of legal aid and civil justice. But the sentencing reforms also merit scrutiny and, in many instances, support.

The bill proposes to: call a halt to unnecessary use of custodial remand; increase discretion in response to technical breach of licence; and intervene to get children and young people out of trouble. Plans to strengthen rehabilitation, making prison a place where serious offenders do time rather than waste time, should reduce reoffending on release.

A new duty to ‘state in ordinary language and in general terms, the court’s reasons for deciding on the sentence’ provides a first foothold for responding to the needs of victims, witnesses and defendants with low cognitive abilities, and people with speech, language and communication difficulties.

Amended to place an obligation on criminal justice services, this could lead to more appropriate support and the introduction of checks and balances to enable understanding and engagement, pre-trial and during proceedings. With the new diversion and liaison schemes at police stations and courts, this could put things right for the many people who are mentally ill, and those with learning disabilities, caught up in the justice system.

The urgent review of sentences of imprisonment for public protection (IPP), and commitment to bring forward proposals in the bill to the autumn, is long overdue. The current system is unclear and unjust, and has attracted near universal criticism from judges, Parole Board members, the prisons inspectorate, prison governors, staff and prisoners and families alike.

The Prison Reform Trust runs an advice and information service which responds to over 6,000 prisoners and their families, and those with an interest in the penal system, including prison staff and solicitors. The uncertainty and confusion engendered by high use of custodial remand and indeterminate sentences are central concerns.

Each year an extraordinary 55,000 men, women and children enter prison on remand. Of those about one in five is acquitted, almost always without receiving compensation, and a further third are released to pay a fine or serve a short community sentence if their offence is thought to warrant further punishment. Yet we know that even a relatively short period in custody can have a devastating impact.

The number of people sentenced to IPPs has far exceeded what was intended when the sentence was introduced in 2005, placing an impossible burden on an already overstretched prison service and Parole Board. Around 6,500 prisoners are serving an IPP sentence. Of these about 3,500 are held beyond their tariff expiry date.

Since 2005 just 202 people serving IPP sentences have been released from custody. It is shaming to have so many people locked up in our prisons, not for what they have done but for what they might do in the future.

Arguably, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is unwieldy. It is driven in large part by pragmatic considerations and economic necessity. Nevertheless, when it comes to sentencing reform there is something to be said for moderation and proportionality. It takes courage, rigour and common sense to sort out the mess of custodial remand and to do away with the Kafkaesque indeterminate sentence for public protection.

The humane and decent measures in this bill deserve to make it through to legislation.

Juliet Lyon is director of the Prison Reform Trust and secretary general of Penal Reform International