29,000 criminals released early

It looks like the government have underestimated the amount of criminals that will benefit from early release. They estimated that 25,500 criminals would be freed in 12 months but that total was breached in April's figures, just 10 months into operation. They have actually freed more than 29,000 including 2 terrorists and someone who went on to rape.

The policy is not going to be reviewed until September 2009 and by that time 70,000 prisoners could be released to commit more crime. If you are ever a victim of a crime committed by someone that should have been in prison you know who to blame.

Thousands won't leave prison

A few days ago I blogged that the government are planning to release tens of thousands of criminals from prisons to help with prison overcrowding.

It now seems that the government were planning to release thousands more but those criminals like it so much in prison that they chose to stay because real life is apparently tough compared to prison.

The prisons in this country are so overcrowded that wife beaters are going to avoid prison because there is no room for them. Infact the government has shelved an entire new law to help battered wives because they would be unable to enforce it without prison.

Prisoners that do choose the option of early release frequently go back to crime because they see no incentive not to. An example would be Anthony Thompson who raped an expectant mother only 1 day after being released. The woman can thank the Labour government for their incompetent management of the prison system that has lead to criminals being released just to go back to their criminal ways.

Government to release more prisoners than expected

THOUSANDS more prisoners than the Govern­ment ­estimated will be let out early because of the chaotic handling of the overcrowding crisis.

An official forecast of the number of criminals to benefit in the first year of the ­controversial early release scheme has already been exceeded after 10 months.

The total number to be released early is now expected to pass 30,000 for the last year.

It means that even more violent thugs, sex offenders, robbers and burglars will be let back on the streets than predicted.

The government is crazier than I thought. The prison population is less than 90,000 this means that the equivalent of 33% of prisoners will be released. The government must be in a real panic to do this. At the same time this doesn’t give an incentive for criminals to stop committing crimes. It just shows that we are a soft touch and if they are caught again they will be out of prison in no time.

Criminals getting slap on wrist

Did you think that sentences for criminals are already low? Do you think it is outrageous that thousands of sex offenders are being punished with just a caution? Are you outraged by prisoners being released early only to go and re-offend?

If you are outraged it’s just going to get worse. At present prisoners only actually do 50% of the sentence they are given but now the government are thinking of reducing that to 40%. This means that they will serve less than half of their sentence. Prison is not enough of a deterrent now and this will just make it worse.

Gordon Brown to deal with gangs?

Gordon Brown has promised intensive action to deal with gangs. He must have had a change of heart considering he let a couple of gang bosses out for early release and then the police had to re-arrest them. You can’t tell me that the government didn’t know how dangerous these people were. Why on earth were they ever released?

I think they will like it in prison. Maybe they will be able to deal drugs without the prison staff ever finding out. If prison governors take the advice of Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons then drug dealing will get much easier than it is at present. She has advised that prison officers should show respect to prisoners by knocking on their cell door before entering. Of course if they were taking drugs this would give them a little time to hide the drugs or any other illegal substances.

Unsafe criminals released

Nearly 1,000 criminals freed early to ease the prison overcrowding crisis had previously been rated too unsafe to be let out with an electronic tag, it has emerged.

They were ordered to remain behind bars because governors rated them a high risk of re-offending.

Despite these fears, they have been freed under Labour's controversial early release scheme announced as an emergency measure last month after the prison population hit a record 81,000.

Yesterday's revelation is yet another blow for the early release policy which the Conservatives described as 'potentially highly dangerous'.

The party's justice spokesman Edward Garnier said: 'If they were not safe to be let out on tags, why are they safe to be let out with taxpayers' cash in their pockets but no tags on their ankles?

The government is totally incompetent. They were put in prison for a reason and now even the ones that are unsafe to be let out with an electronic tag are being let out. Someone needs to get control of this mess and fast. Labour will never be able to do it. They have shown that they can’t succeed at anything.

More crimes committed by early released prisoners

It looks like the early release to ease prison overcrowding isn’t going well. As well as committing a robbery within days of being released they have also committed other offences and are now back in prison or are on the run.

Maybe the government will learn from this and not do it again. Well it isn’t likely seeing as they have done it before and it lead to more than 1000 crimes by prisoners who had been released early to ease overcrowding.