Reoffending rate 'drops from 73% to 42% with community sentences'

Alternative community punishment orders have proven more effective, with just 42 per cent reoffending in the same period.

However, although the proportion of people reoffending within two years has fallen, the actual number of such offences increased, because crime rose as a whole.

Prostitutes were the most likely to reoffend, followed by burglars, shoplifters and other thieves. Those dealt with by the courts through Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTOs) also had higher reconviction rates, at 86 per cent, than people serving other types of sentences.

However, DTTOs have a reputation for being tough as they require addicts to stay off drugs and submit to regular tests and are only given to persistent offenders who commit crimes to fund their habits.

Ministers have been happy with their modest success and are considering expanding the scheme to include less persistent offenders, at a cost of 2.2 million in the first year, and 1.8m a year afterwards.

Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "The key to breaking the cycle of reoffending can be found in these statistics. Short sentences simply don't work for low-level offenders. They are both ineffective and of no practical benefit to communities."

The actual number of people reoffending went up from 22,549 in 2005-6 to 23,419 in 2006-7, because crime rose as a whole.

However, the figures are more than three years old, as the statistics take time to collate, and police reports have shown a fall in recorded crime since then.

The figures relate to the final year of the previous Labour administration, but the party was quick to use them to criticise the current Scottish Government.

James Kelly, Scottish Labour's spokesman on community safety, said: "Claims that reoffending for community sentences is lower don't stand up to any scrutiny because those who are given custodial sentences rather than community sentences have usually already reoffended many times. They are by definition more serious criminals.

"A third of community sentences are currently breached and some 250 hour orders are taking over two years to complete."

John Lamont, Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, whose party also opposed scrapping short-term sentences, added: "We are not rehabilitating criminals successfully when they are behind bars, and we are failing to get them off the conveyor belt of crime.

"But that does not mean we should be letting them off jail sentences altogether.There is an alarming failure rate for tagging and Drug Testing and Treatment Orders, showing they are not being properly enforced."

Robert Brown, Scottish Liberal Democrats justice spokesman, said: "Re-offending rates among those sent to jail for short sentences of only a few months are incredibly high. It is frequently much more effective to hand out community service orders to these offenders.

"Re-offending rates are much lower and they are much less expensive for the public purse."