Media: Government plans to double penalty for serious violence

The government is preparing to present a plan for a proposed penal reform, where the penalties for serious and especially serious violence will be doubled.

In addition, the penalty for simple violence will increase by 50 percent.

According to Berlingske, which has spoken with "a long line of sources" in the government, the governing parties, and the civil service, the government expects to present the proposal at the end of May after several delays since the fall last year, it is said.

The measures do not mean that the sentencing guidelines will be increased.

Instead, it is planned to write in the notes to the penal code that the Parliament believes that the current level of sentencing is "out of step with public sentiment."

Judges will be instructed to consider what the normal sentence would be - and then add 50 or 100 percent to the sentence.

In this way, the government will instruct judges to use the existing sentencing guidelines more frequently.

Berlingske also learns that the government is working on a "significant" expansion of the possibility of serving a sentence with an ankle monitor.

Currently, it is possible to serve a sentence with an electronic ankle monitor if one is sentenced to an unconditional prison term of up to six months.

The plan is to set the limit at 12 months.

Berlingske reports that it has not been possible to find out how much the reform will cost the state budget.

However, according to the media, sources say that the reform will be the largest to take place in the area in "many, many years."

Simultaneously, it is said that an element that would have created 215 free spaces in prisons has been scrapped.

Both Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard (S) and Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen (V) have previously stated that the government wants longer sentences for serious violent crime.

Justice Minister Hummelgaard has also stated that he "definitely will not reject" a proposal from the Left Party and the Conservatives to establish a new women's prison in Jutland.

/ritzau/

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