Dr Rowan Williams is worried about the increased use of imprisonment

Patricia Amos, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, was sentenced on Tuesday to 28 days in prison for letting her daughter Jacqueline, 14, miss classes.

In 2002, she was sentenced to 60 days for failing to stop her daughter, Emma, then 15, from truanting.

Opening a Lords debate, Dr Rowan Williams said the sentence would have a harmful effect on the family.

He said: "Reading this week about a parent jailed for collusion with her child's truancy, I find myself asking, not for the first time, whether we understand anything about the social effects of custody on family life."

The Archbishop is calling for a fresh look at sentencing policy, urging ministers to exercise "caution" in creating more criminal offences with jail sentences.

He also underlined new ways of dealing with sex offenders.

"I note also the development, I believe particularly in Berkshire, of the Canadian model of support and accountability as a means of dealing with that most difficult and challenging of subjects, the treatment of sex offenders," he said.