Prison failure?

There is apparently a new phrase in the penal lexicon - "resettlement overnight release" (ROR).

We have accustomed to lower sentencing, easier and earlier parole, and so on, often with disastrous results. Now we have a new idea - allowing a prisoner out in his final year, for up to 100 days to do community service, in periods of up to 30 days.

In 2006 governors approved 3,813 licences for such release. in 2007 it was 6,914, while in 2008 it was 11,599. The idea is catching on! (There have been some well-recorded instances of prisoners using the period outside to commit murder and rape, as well as threatening, but a prison spokesperson claimed that the scheme actually reduces re-offending.)

The scheme is intended, so it is claimed, to help with resettlement with family and community after final release. The suspicion is, taken with all the other measures I mentioned, that it is really to reduce to pressure on over-crowded prisons. Currently the prison population is about 1,000 below the operational capacity of over 85,500, but there are peaks, and new arrivals do not necessarily correspond in number with releases.

If the suspicion is correct, and it is held widely outside Labour and prison management circles, it suggest that yet again we have evidence of "weak on crime, weak on the causes of crime".