Hand-wringing

The Sun newspaper revealed this week that serious offenders released early because of prison overcrowding committed more violent offences. Of the most dangerous criminals out on licence, and theoretically under supervision, 83 were charged with serious offences, compared to the figure of 61 last year.

Serious offences in this connection means things such as murder, manslaughter, attempted homicide, rape or attempted rape or any other serious violent or sexual crime with a maximum penalty of 14 years or more.

One in ten high or medium-risk criminals were returned to prison for crimes committed or otherwise breaking their release conditions.

In one sense this is an admission that, even in this age of electronic supervision and communication, inadequate resources means that it is difficult to keep track of the prisoners after release. Indeed, the Sun article , also refers to a 30% rise in the proportion of sex offenders who did not report their location to the police.

In essence, however, the problem is one of the Government's own making. Despite the Tory Opposition and others repeatedly warning them, and numbers of prisoners rising inexorably to the capacity level, the Government made inadequate provision for building new prisons. This was compounded by the inefficient way the Home Office went about deporting foreign nationals in our prisons. We learn that almost 1 in 7 prisoners is a foreign national, - over 11,000! The Human Rights act and the judiciary have prevented some repatriation on grounds of hazard, but the almost complete failure is a sign of incompetence.

Despite frequent public statements of intention, or even action, on these issues, the Government has signally failed. The hapless Justice Minister, Maria Eagle, could only metaphorically wring her hands and claim that protecting the public was of "paramount importance"