SCOTTISH judges will be ordered to stop routinely sentencing offenders to less than a year in jail, SNP Community Safety Minister Ash Denham announced today.

Ms Denham made an “affirmative order” to initiate the shift, which will require Scottish Parliament approval, noting that short-sentence convicts are reconvicted nearly twice as often as those handed community service.

She said the new advice was “not a ban” but an extension of the current “presumption” against sentences of less than three months.