The chief inspector of Scottish prisons has called to end jail terms of less than 12 months.

David Strang believes that shorter prison sentences did nothing to cut crime levels.

Speaking on BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme, Mr Strang said he believed that sending more people to jail to serve shorter sentences would result in reconviction rates and repeat offence rates increasing.

He said: "The evidence is very clear that if you want to reduce crime then you don't send people to prison for a short time.

"People who are released from a short sentence of less than 12 months, over half of them are reconvicted within one year.

"So I would have thought that one purpose of the criminal justice system is to prevent future crimes, to reduce reoffending, and that if you send someone to prison then the damage that that does leads to them reoffending more than if you had given them an alternative."

Mr Strang is calling for more community payback orders to be issued, as it would save between £20,000-£30,000 per convict per year.

A Scottish government spokesman said: "We have consistently stated that the consultation responses on extending the presumption against short prison sentences would inform our decisions and it is only right that we take the time to consider these views.

"We'll continue to discuss how best to take this forward with the relevant stakeholders."