Pubdate: Thu, 21 Mar 2002
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Richard Ford and Ian Cobain

BLUNKETT OPENS PRISON GATES TO EASE CROWDING

Record Number Of Inmates Puts System At Breaking Point

HUNDREDS of prisoners are to be released early in an attempt to ease a 
desperate overcrowding crisis in Britain's jails, David Blunkett will 
announce today.

People convicted of burglary, fraud and drugs offences will be freed two 
months early after being fitted with electronic tags under a controversial 
curfew scheme. Violent criminals and sex offenders will, however, stay in jail.

Hundreds of prisoners already released under the curfew have gone on to 
commit a string of crimes, including rapes and kidnappings, and the plan to 
extend the scheme was condemned last night by the Victims of Crime Trust. 
"It is time this Government stopped looking at reasons to not send people 
to prison,"   the trust's spokesman Norman Brennan, said. "The people who 
will be released are the very people from whom society needs to be protected."

The Tories also condemned the move. Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Home 
Secretary, said: "It is not right to drive sentencing policy by the 
capacity of our jails. On the contrary, the capacity of our jails needs to 
be adjusted to deal with the sentences being handed down."

But the Home Office says that electronic tagging has been a success, with 
94 per cent of those freed not reoffending. And Juliet Lyon, director of 
the Prison Reform Trust said: "If this means greater supervision of 
prisoners and it eases population pressure, then we welcome it."

The new measures, which coincide with plans to erect prefabricated cell 
blocks to create space for another 3,000 prisoners in category C and D 
jails, have been prepared as concern mounts within the Prison Service about 
the record numbers of people being held in jail.

The population of the 137 jails in England and Wales has risen from 66,075 
at the beginning of the year to 70,183 yesterday, in spite of senior 
judges' attempts to persuade the courts to be much more sparing in their 
use of custody. Up to 150 prisoners a night have to be held in police cells 
because there is no room for them in local prisons, and overcrowding is 
particularly acute at women's jails.

Home Office sources insisted last night that plans to free more prisoners 
early were not primarily intended to ease the overcrowding crisis, but to 
ensure more effective post-release supervision of minor criminals.

However, with ministers meeting at 10 Downing Street yesterday to consider 
ways of combating crime, and with police forces poised for a crackdown on 
street robberies next month, it is clear that more prison places will be 
needed for serious offenders.

Under the electronic tagging scheme a " officially known as Home Detention 
Curfew orders a " prisoners serving between 12 months and four years for 
non-violent offences have their sentences cut by two months as well as 
their automatic parole. Now the scheme is to be extended so that those 
serving less than 12 months are automatically released early, which should 
mean the release of about 2,000 prisoners. At present, a prisoner can be 
freed only after a risk assessment has been prepared by the Prison Service.

Mr Blunkett has ruled out executive release, under which he would order 
prisoners coming to the end of their sentence to be freed. Instead he wants 
individual prison governors to make greater use of their discretionary 
powers to free inmates under the scheme.

Some 44,082 prisoners were released in the first three years of the scheme 
after it was launched in January 1999, and latest Home Office figures show 
that 671 were subsequently caught committing a total of 1,235 offences.

Many critics of the scheme believe the true number of offences to be much 
higher. Mr Brennan of the Victims of Crime Trust and a serving police 
officer, said: "They are probably getting out and committing many more 
offences, but the detection rate is so low at the moment that will never 
know for sure."

According to reports, statistics show that criminals who would otherwise 
have been in jail have been responsible for rapes, serious assaults, 
kidnappings and burglaries. Two were reported to have been caught with 
firearms and 14 with knives.

One such offender was David Sudlow, who drugged and raped a teenage girl 
four weeks after being set free from a 12-month sentence for possessing and 
attempting to supply amphetamines. Sudlow, 57, is believed to have paid 
someone to cut off his ankle tag, and its signals suggested he had not left 
his home. He was jailed for nine years.

The Prime Minister chaired yesterday's Downing Street meeting at which 
ministers were asked to make a contribution to the drive to combat robbery 
amid government alarm at statistics to be published in July, which are 
expected to show that street robbery will have risen by more than a quarter 
in the year ending March 31, 2002. That rises of 26 per cent in 1999-2000 
and 13 per cent in 2000-2001.

Mr Blunkett said the Government alone could not stem the rise. "All of us 
are involved in this, not just government, but everybody in the community, 
including parents, in getting a grip on what's going on,"   he said.

But the meeting was greeted with scepticism by the Conservatives and some 
police officers who saw it as a headline-grabbing initiative.
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