Changes to the government’s prisoner recall release policy will give domestic abusers a chance to ‘twist the knife’ on their victims, ministers have been warned.
Under emergency measures announced by the Justice Secretary, some criminals serving sentences between one and four years will be returned to custody only for a fixed 28-day period.
Shabana Mahmood said the changes were necessary to curb overcrowding as she warned jails are on track to be down to ‘zero capacity’ by November.
The plans were criticised by victims’ commissioner Baroness Newlove and domestic abuse commissioner Dame Nicole Jacobs, who said lives would be in danger as a result of the decision.
Dame Nicole said: ‘You are not sent to prison for four years if you do not pose significant risk to your victim or the wider public.
‘Re-releasing them back into the community after 28 days is simply unacceptable.’
Justice minister Sir Nicholas Dakin was quizzed on the policy by MPs in the Commons today.
Conservative former minister Sir Desmond Swayne said: ‘Given the nature of domestic abusers, many will welcome the opportunity to give another twist to the knife at a mere cost of 28 days.
‘Hasn’t he just presented them with a practical opportunity?’
Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall Ben Maguire said the Government has ‘failed to step up and tackle the sheer scale of the problem’ in criminal justice capacity.
Speaking from the front bench he said: ‘Victims and survivors are worried about what this will now mean for them.
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‘If there was a specific offence of domestic abuse, those dangerous offenders could have been excluded from early release, but the Government has taken no action at all since the Liberal Democrats raised the solution with them last autumn.
‘So will the minister finally commit to giving victims and survivors the protections they deserve by creating new domestic abuse aggravated offences?’
Sir Nicholas said getting things right for victims is ‘something we take very, very seriously and needs to be done very, very properly’.
Conservative former minister MP John Lamont asked what discussions the department had had with both commissioners before arriving at its decisions.
Sir Nicholas replied: ‘We speak to the victims’ commissions regularly’, adding they would be spoken to ‘later today’.
Baroness Newlove wrote to the Justice Secretary today saying she was ‘struggling to understand’ why this group of recalled offenders had been the focus of early release as she pressed for what safeguards will be in place for victims.
‘We are re-releasing a group of offenders assessed as high risk and with a track record of poor compliance,’ she wrote.
‘These high maintenance offenders are all being re-released at a time when the Probation Service is already struggling to cope with the huge demands being placed upon it.’
Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, said victims of domestic abuse are in fear ‘particularly those who live in rural areas where tagging does not always work’.
She asked the minister if provisions would be in place to protect such people.
Sir Nicholas replied: ‘Anybody recalled on the fixed term recall will be recalled for 28 days, and if their risk is assessed as greater, they will be transferred to standard recall.
‘The reality is that anybody that’s affected by this has already served their time in prison. They are on licence being properly monitored and effectively managed by the probation service.’
Labour MP Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) asked to ensure that ‘lessons have been learned’ from cases of people being murdered by prisoners on remand.
He said: ‘In separate cases two families in my constituency lost loved ones. They were murdered by offenders who were out on remand and who never should have been.’
Sir Nicholas said he would meet with him to take the matter further.
It is hoped the emergency measures will free up 1,400 prison places and ‘buy time’ before sentencing reforms expected to come into force next spring.
Legislation to bring in the changes is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.
Ms Mahmood also announced three new prisons will be built, starting this year, as part of a ‘record prison expansion’, but admitted ‘we cannot build our way out of this crisis’.
‘The consequences of failing to act are unthinkable, but they must be understood,’ she said.
‘If our prisons overflow, courts cancel trials, police halt their arrests, crime goes unpunished and we reach a total breakdown of law and order.’
The latest weekly prison population in England and Wales was 88,087, 434 below the last peak of 88,521 inmates on September 6, recorded just before the Government began freeing thousands of prisoners early as part of efforts to curb overcrowding.
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