Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Why the change of heart?

Have just read some pretty amazing figures about the "End of Custody Licence" which is also more commonly known as "early release". This is essentially where, to free up space, a prison releases someone before their sentence ends on licence, which, if they break, they can be recalled to prison. Apparently, according to Jack Straw,
Of the 28,879 prisoners release under End of Custody Licence between 29 June 2007 and 31 May 2008, the latest date for which this figure is available, around 5,300 had previously been refused release on home detention curfew.
Putting aside the number of released prisoners, it suprised me that 18% of all the prisoners released had previously been refused release under curfew and home detention. Presumably there was good reason for not letting them out under such circumstances so why were they let out early under even more relaxed conditions?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What we really want to know is how many of the ones who re-offend while out on licence actually go back to prison.

Robert said...

They would not know, more then likely they have lost the files.