However, Clive Elliott from the Victims of Crime Trust believes the balance is wrong and that handouts should be given to victims who are being let down by the criminal justice system.

Frances Crook

I welcome the report.

But it needs to be a practical approach, otherwise we will have a million more crimes every year and a million more victims.

I think there are certain things people need when they come out of prison.

Firstly support, and prisons can do a lot to foster what while people are in prison.

Secondly, housing, otherwise they're going to sleep on the streets and beg.

Thirdly, they need work.

But in order to gain access to work they need a probation officer.

I would rather my taxes went to help to pay for a probation officer than they steal my purse and go to prison.

The real promises seem to have disappeared between the leaked report and today's report

Frances Crook, Howard League for Penal Reform

The report suggests "going straight contracts".

That's fine, but you have to give them practical ways of developing. It has to work both ways.

I think the government has made it a one-way contract and I'm worried about that. There is no evidence that there is the necessary support.

The real promises seem to have disappeared between the leaked report and today's report.

What worries me is there seem to be some good intentions that somehow got diluted.

These were very practical things like maintaining people's rights to housing benefit and making sure people have enough money when they leave prison to keep them going for two weeks.

'Good start'

They can't apply for housing benefit for two weeks after they come out and yet they only get one week's money when they leave.

They get �40 to last two weeks.

The �100 suggested in the leaked report seems to have disappeared.

I want to see people able to get their benefit and ensure that it's arranged before they leave prison.

I think this is a good start, but real action has to follow.

But really there are too many people going into prison.

The re-offending rate is so high. So if we reduced unnecessary use of prison, we might see crime drop more.

Clive Elliott

When Michael Howard was home secretary, he said it was 'wholly wrong' that the interests of victims are subordinated to prisoners.

That's how it has been and that's how it is.

One of the things about any kind of punitive sentence is that one, it's given as a deterrent and two, it shows the victim, or the family of the victim, that someone is paying the price for the crime.

Most victims feel let down by the penal system.

The victim is left out in the cold.

Before we look at any more services provided to perpetrators we should note there are more than 100 organisations to help perpetrators.

However, there are fewer than 10 to help victims and only one - Victim Support - is funded by the government.

We have to put the victims' needs high above the perpetrators.

What the government must never do is balance commercial interests - ie. how much it costs - with justice.

The balance is wrong in terms of funding for perpetrators and victims

Clive Elliott, Victims of Crime Trust

They're always short-changing the public to save money.

There is no proof this scheme would work. The penal reformers have said it would work and the government has seized on it, because it's cheaper for them.

But what happens after funding them for six months? It's just bad money after bad money.

The balance is wrong in terms of funding for perpetrators and victims.

We need to look at programmes of rehabilitation for victims and also housing for victims.

Many people we see have seen someone in their family murdered, and a large percentage of the people we help come from low socio-economic areas and their family member has been killed by someone who lives on the same council estate.

Safety

Victims need to see their perpetrators spending more time in prison.

The trouble is when prisoners are released, nine times out of 10, they go back to the same area where they committed the crime and their victim comes face-to-face with the perpetrator.

We should be putting in a lot more work to find out if people being released onto the streets really are safe.

Even if prisoners are reformed when they come out, if they are really reformed, they won't re-offend. Is six months' rent really going to make a difference to them re-offending?

They shouldn't be letting anyone out of whom they think, ' if this person doesn't get their six months rent, they're going to re-offend again'.

What was the point of them spending any time in prison if that's what we are going to see?