Nazir Afzal, former chief crown prosecutor for North West England and an advocate of the new government, called Mr Timpson’s appointment “ground-breaking”.
“We could see a significant sea change in how we deal with crime and offenders in this country,” he said.
“We’ve had a culture for far too long of putting people inside who shouldn’t be.”
However, former Labour home secretary David Blunkett said working in government was challenging.
“I think it’s a positively good thing if [Mr Timpson] is able to navigate the minefield of government,” he said.
“Not just to say the right thing but to really achieve positive change in a radical rethink of how we do prisons and probation.”
But some have little sympathy for criminals and believe in harsher and longer sentences.
One Tory MP, who did not want to be named, said: “The public want to see people properly punished for breaking the law but I get there needs to be a rethink.”
Last week, the Prison Governors’ Association (PGA), which represents more than 95% of all prison governors and managers working in England and Wales, said the entire criminal justice system “stands on the precipice of failure” as it called on the next government to tackle problems “without delay”.
Mr Timpson is now the person assigned to sorting out the crisis as a matter of urgency, along with new Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
In February, Mr Timpson spoke openly about his views on the justice system, telling Channel 4 there needed to be an overhaul.
“We’re addicted to sentencing, we’re addicted to punishment,” he said.
“So many of the people in prison in my view shouldn’t be there. A lot should but a lot shouldn’t, and they’re there for far too long.”
Asked if he agreed with Mr Timpson’s remarks at Saturday’s news conference, Sir Keir said: “I’ve sat in the back of I don’t know how many criminal courts and watched people processed through the system on an escalator to go into prison.
“And I’ve often reflected that many of them could have been taken out of that system earlier if they’d had support, and that is why what we want to do with our youth hubs and on knife crime is really, really important, because I want to reduce crime.”
The prime minister said “we’ve got too many prisoners and not enough prisons”, calling it a “monumental failure of the last government”.
“We’ll fix [it], but we can’t fix it overnight,” he said.
“We do need to be clear about the way we use prisons and we need to get away from the fact that so many people leave prison and then are back in prison pretty quickly.
“That is a massive problem that we need to break and that’s why I was very pleased to put James into the post, someone who hasn’t just talked the talk, he’s actually walked the walk for many years.”
He added that if young people, particularly boys, are offered support at a “point of intervention” in the early teenage years, it could ensure some of them “do not get on that escalator” to imprisonment.
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