Row over early prison releases

March 21, 2002

Home Secretary David Blunkett is expected to urge prison governors to release hundreds more inmates early under the electronic tagging scheme.

The prison population is at a record level of more than 70,000, but the Home Office insists the impetus for early release is to cut re-offending - not to ease over-crowding.

However, the Conservatives say such a move would ‘undermine the fundamental principles of justice’.

David Blunkett says the tagging scheme cuts reoffending Shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin MP said: ‘When a judge sentences a criminal, it is the responsibility of the home secretary to ensure that the criminal in question can serve the sentence in question.’

Mr Blunkett is expected to tell prison governors they should regard the ‘home detention curfew’ as the first option for inmates serving three to 12 months.

He will make the announcement at the Prisons and Probation Inspectorates conference in London today, the Home Office confirmed.

Governors will be told they retain their discretion on whether it is safe to release individual inmates early, but that they should regard it is as a preferred option.

Those with a history of sexual and violent crime will continue to be excluded from the scheme.

All other prisoners serving between three months and four years are currently eligible for tagging.

Rising street crime

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Mr Blunkett will announce the use of the tagging scheme as the first resort in breaking the cycle of crime.’

But Norman Brennan, of the Victims of Crime Trust, told The Times newspaper: ‘The people who will be released are the very people from whom society needs to be protected.’

The announcement comes on the day a poll for The Guardian suggests alarm over rising street crime is boosting the Tories' popularity.

The ICM survey of more than 1,000 people suggests Labour's lead has been cut from 17 points to nine in the last month, with law and order fears a key factor.

The prison population currently stands at a record 70,197, just a few hundred short of capacity.

Home Office figures released last year showed that in the first three years of the tagging scheme, introduced in January 1999, just 893 crimes were committed by the 42,853 prisoners released early - a reoffending rate of just two per cent.

But there appears to be a reluctance on the part of prison governors to use the home detention curfew as just 25% of those eligible for tagging last year were freed early.

From BBCi

Copyright (c) 2000-2002 Sue Kelly