A new Home Office report indicates that by successfully rehabilitating just one burglar the West Yorkshire Probation Service could be preventing a further nine crimes being committed by that same person.

The report, Cracking A Criminal Cycle - Why Tailored Community Sentences Help To Reduce Crime in Yorkshire and Humberside, highlights how the `mix and match' element of the new community sentences is central to helping rehabilitate offenders and turning them from their life of crime.

The report says community sentences can work to stop offenders committing further crimes by identifying the reasons why they offend and setting out robust measures to stop them.

These include requiring the offender to do community work, restricting their liberty with curfews, requiring the offender to take part in rigorous offending behaviour programmes or expecting offenders to undergo drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatments.

West Yorkshire chief probation officer Sue Hall said: "Although prison sentences will always be necessary as the most suitable measure for dealing with serious and high-risk offenders, community sentences can be highly effective at punishing offenders and preventing re-offending.

"The new community orders allow magistrates to choose the most appropriate combinations of punitive measures and rehabilitative programmes for each offender.

"The Probation Service is committed to delivering these sentences as effectively as possible.

"I am confident we can play an important role addressing the wider issues that cause offending behaviour and provide the help offenders need to live constructive and crime-free lives.

"Successful rehabilitation of West Yorkshire offenders on community sentences will mean less crime."

Baroness Scotland, Minister of State for the Criminal Justice System, said: "There is no doubt that persistent repeat offenders are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime and that the bulk of this crime is committed in their local communities.

"However, by developing tough community sentences that robustly and effectively addressing offenders' behaviour we can get right to the heart of this problem, reducing re-offending and making a genuinely positive impact on the lives of those people most affected by crime."