The Ministry of Justice has revised down its estimated prison population levels as a result of the changes in sentencing Mr Clarke introduced when he was the Justice Secretary.
Mr Clarke was accused of implementing a swathe of lighter justice including the scrapping of the indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPPs) and encouraging more out of court punishments.
As a result of those changes and fewer people even going to court, the MoJ now estimates there will be up to 4,500 fewer offenders in prison at any one time by 2017 compared with previous estimates.
That will effectively mean tens of thousands fewer criminals going to jail over the next half a decade.
Mr Clarke was made the Coalition’s first Justice Secretary after the general election in 2010 and immediately sparked controversy among traditional Tories by questioning whether prison worked.
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