THE justice minister has backed a plan for splitting court sentences between prison and community work.

It is one of a raft of new ideas being championed by Cathy Jamieson.

These include a move to bring offenders back to court towards the end of sentences to reassure the judges and the public that community orders are being carried out.

She has revealed plans to raise the profile of community service and reparation orders, by "badging" the work they do at local neighbourhood level, though she is not backing suggestions that they could wear conspicuous, brightly-coloured clothing to add to the stigma of their sentences.

Her intention is that repainted walls, new public gardens and well-maintained playgrounds could be badged as offenders' work, letting people see results.

Facing political pressure to end the automatic early release of prisoners sentenced to less than four years, she warned this will have to be phased in because of the resulting pressure on the prison service from increased inmate numbers. She also indicated there could be problems with retrospectively applying changed rules.

On the eve of a debate on criminal justice reform today at Holyrood, the minister said she wants to make fines easier to pay, with one national collection agency, while helping to reduce the number of fine defaulters who clog up prison administration.

The idea of split-tariff sentences - part prison, part community service order - has been floated as part of the work of the Sentencing Commission, set up by ministers and led by judges, which is scheduled to report in the next few weeks.

Ms Jamieson said the idea was "very interesting" and that she wanted to see more of that "radical" thinking. "Sometimes the distinction between a jail sentence and a community sentence isn't that helpful, " she said.

One of the biggest obstacles to such reform is that the judiciary and the public are sceptical about the effectiveness of community sentences, which include antisocial behaviour orders, reparation orders, dispersal orders and community service.

She said a priority was to reassure people by having the programmes fully accredited and monitored.

"If the judiciary has the confidence that it knows the programmes will be carried out professionally, monitored properly, and if people breach the orders they'll be brought back, all of those things will help the judiciary have the confidence to use the options."