Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles

UK/Return to prison increases 247%

UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Most of those people returning to prison have been sent back because they have breached the conditions of their licence - which releases them into the community under the supervision of the probation service - and not because they have committed further criminal offences, the report by the Prison Reform Trust said.

The charity, which campaigns for a more humane and effective penal system, wants the probation service to increase support to prisoners on licence in order that they understand the conditions of their release.

The prison service should also always explain to prisoners why they are back in prison, so that they have time, if appropriate, to appeal the decision, the charity said.

Enver Solomon, the author of the report, Recycling Offenders Through Prison, said today: "This story isn't just about the figures but more about why these figures have gone up, why people are returned to custody and why can't they cope?"

Mr Solomon said he knew of cases where prisoners with learning difficulties had been recalled to prison after failing, as part of their license agreements, to attend probation meetings because they were unable to distinguish between Thursday and Tuesday.

He said: "These prisoners have returned to prison not because they pose a threat to public safety but because they have needs which aren't being met."

Juliet Lyon, director of the trust, said: "The current system for breach of licence and recall sets people up to fail. Arrangements designed to be tough and fair are too often turning out to be punitive and unjust."

The number of prisoners recalled to custody for breaching their licence in 2000-2001 was 2,333, according to official figures from the Home Office. By 2003-4, that figure had soared to 8,103 - an increase of 247%.

The report revealed that in a three-month period at the end of last year, 8% of offenders on parole who had been sentenced to more than four years' imprisonment were sent back to prison for committing another criminal offence.

But for prisoners who had served shorter sentences, between 12 months and four years, the number being recalled for re-offending rose to 40%. However, the report said, reconviction rates for people serving shorter sentences were traditionally higher.

The Home Office said the increase in the number of prisoners released on license being recalled to jail reflected improved performance by the probation service.

A spokeswoman said: "The increase in recall of prisoners reflects our overriding concern to protect the public from further offending and sends a clear signal that we will not tolerate poor behaviour from those offenders serving a sentence in the community."

The report comes as the prison population in England and Wales has reached a record high of 75,877, an increase of 25,000 prisoners over the last decade.

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said the increase in the number of released prisoners returning to prison was due to Home Office targets introduced five years ago.

He said: "The Home Office set rigorous enforcement targets for prisoners so that anybody who failed to turn up for three appointments with their probation officer while on licence was automatically returned to prison. Our professional discretion was taken away. "The government has to decide whether it wants to continue to go down the path of punishment and enforcement or reintroduce professional discretion, rehabilitation and reform."

By Debbie Andalo Wednesday May 25, 2005

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Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
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Inquest blames jail for overdose death
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Inquiry must root out prison racists
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This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Licensed to drive, be intimidated, be harassed, and interfered with?

NSW Police should not be given any more power to stop drivers going about their business. These new powers are just a substitute for the recent attack on privacy, whereby police wanted to search for guns by stopping drivers randomly.

Hook or by crook police want the powers to interfere with any citizen anywhere any place or any time. This is just a guise for the same result. Give police a reason and they'll take it up. The more power they get the less social justice the government has to deliver.

When police use these powers corruptly they always have a reason to be there, whether it is legitimate or not. That is the reason why, when it is reported that someone has been interfered with, the police say, "we were just doing our job". In some cases that may be the case but if people are trying to prove corruption against police the more power they have, the less likely people are going to be able to prove it. That is what NSW citizen ought to be aware of.

Laws, which have disabled drivers by taking their licenses off them because of 'not paying fines,' amongst other things, were short sighted and have forced thousands of drivers to 'drive unlicensed'.

Shame Bob Carr, shame on your short sighted policies. People have to survive and go to work to pay bills, and a short sighted policy that insured fines were paid have not paid off, in the long term. As a result there have been thousands of unlicensed drivers fined again, and thousands of dollars damage caused without insurance, because those drivers were either unlicensed or unregistered when they had an accident.

Drivers who failed to pay fines also lost their ability to register their vehicles. Shame on you Carl Scully, shame on your short sighted understanding of the way people makes ends meet.

Don't let police interfere with ordinary citizens getting on with their life. Change the policies that remove ones ability to drive with a registered vehicle and a licence for not paying fines.

In the long term it's better to address the fines issue causing people who cannot pay fines hardship and now trauma. We need a better community response and a long-term policy that deals with poverty in relation to fines.

What you're seeing now is the inflation of not having policy that properly addresses fines, which will lead to less tolerance, interference and additional trauma, by police against the community. In reality police should be working with the community to find a satisfactory and appropriate way of solving the problem of fines.

By Short Sighted 5 September 03

THE ELEPHANT: The Carr Government is greedy, destructive and mean and now they want to interfere with you the citizen, minding your own business, because they failed to properly address community hardship.

By implementing difficult and almost impossible zero tolerance ideology, opposed to tolerance and understanding, in to why people cannot pay fines, they have caused even more distress to a large number of people, not because they don't know how to drive. Not because they drink and drive but because they cannot pay fines and that includes parking fines.

New policy: Give people time to pay fines. Remove the law that prevents people losing their licenses and registering their vehicles because they don't pay fines, don't agree with the fines, or cannot pay fines. These matters belong in the court where mitigating facts can be taken into account.

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Super Rat? M5? M11? K8? N2? So I trust that some people who, with the photos and guns guessed that a jury would quickly establish a case against a profiled person whom, you just had a picture and a history of. Common knowledge? The government knew their victims would take the blame. Not just chess in court, 'moving around the pieces', but 'putting false evidence, or not enough evidence before the jury."

2,500 crooked detectives? Or a corrupt Government?
Evan Whitton: Either two things occurred. If you said you didn't join the police force to extort money from working girls, your papers were marked 'not suitable for plain clothes' and you were sent back to uniform.

How to become corruption resistant in NSW
Don't trust those who cannot prove themselves with the little amounts of trust you give them. Just because they have a letter of perceived trust doesn't mean they can be trusted.

This is not how you eat 'antisocial behaviour'
Process corruption, perjury, planting of evidence, verbals, fabricated confessions, denial of suspects rights, a solicitor to induce confessions, tampering with electronic recording equipment, framing. Generally green lighting crime, and I say Murder, including the kids who overdosed on heroin. No doubt.

Black Knight - Long way to go home
In line with the current climate of police corruption and the demise of the reform unit set up by Wood, these facts ought to have been a good reason to leave Moroney out of the package as Commissioner.

Bob down and sniff my arse
These are serious invasions of privacy and draconian laws? Where are our democratic soldiers, the lawyers and the barristers who need to take on the government in the courts? Are they plastic? Or to busy feathering their nests? Or have they been cleverly purchased by this black government. Drug test police and politicians, and have the tests independently accessed.

Come in spinner? Or Come in sinner?
"You don't have, in my view very vigilant processes. I suppose it's akin to the problem of corruption within the police," he told the ABC radio. " People say there's corruption with the police (but) do you get the police to investigate problems within their own ranks?

Deeds
I am disturbed by Governments 'actions' in relation to shuffling the police service. Clive Small seconded into Parliament like a cocky in a perch. A breach of the fundamental Separation of Powers Doctrine does not in my view allow the thought of intervening, planning, or shuffling to stack the deck of our police service. The one that suppose to be autonomous according to Lord Denning. Where the Parliamentary Secretary can ask the commissioner of police to 'report' then sack him if he is not satisfied with such report.

Australia's Political Underworld...& their enforcers
The promotion of law and order means money to big business. Profits from insurance, security fixtures, patrol services and the like can only continue to grow if the perceived threat of uncontrollable crime wave escalates. In the past few months there have been many examples of the true nature of our blood thirsty politicians and their sinister attempts to spoon-feed a not so gullible public with their repetitious rhetoric.

Truth
Who is telling the truth? Well I guess Dr. Ed. Chadbourne or Mr. Peter Ryan may have the answer to that. Dr. Chadbourne sacked by Peter Ryan and more specifically in my view because he elected deputy commissioners Dave Madden and Andrew Scipione as the best men in the service in relation to his qualifications to make a recommendation in his capacity as human resources.That is if you believe that a Dr. can be corrupted.

Honesty
What is happening between the Police Service and politics is quite extraordinary at the moment. If stand over tactics don't work tell half the truth honestly and follow the example of sheep. Another word for it is sleaze, yeah. Another word for it is workplace harassment. Another word for it is bribing a Police Officer. Another word for it is misleading Parliament.

Tele Tales
Most people I know don't buy the Daily Telegraph. Why? Because of the lies and propaganda purported by them.

Lord Denning
Interesting how a member of the Police Board Mr. Tim Priest would hold grave fears for his safety from dangerous senior police but fails to name them or have them sacked. Rather Priest resigns as if he had no powers. Could that mean what he was saying is that the Governments are also corrupt?

Corrosive
Clive Small is Bob Carr's choice for the new Police Commissioner. It could only be the case considering his, Small's special appointment into Parliament House. Small who suffers from the little person syndrome is the ideal bend over boy who gets shuffled through his corrupt actions. Rolling the legal system for him after the fact, just like his predecessor Roger the dodger Rogerson.

Black Nexus
The Separation of Powers Doctrine is nowcontaminated witharangeofcolours, now leaving us with a black shirt on a once blue bridge that crossed that thin blue line. The 'Amery and Woodham show'.

Same boat
The Premier, Bob Carr, relies on a militia. A gang of bikies and our Police Service, to show all of us he is no murderer. He should be taken to the task along with his partners in crime like Clive Small to account for those people who like my self have been maliciously assaulted and who have complained, without any service and those who cannot speak for themselves who were murdered, like Terry Falconer. Terry murdered in custody.

Good Cop
Why have our democratic institutions broken down? It's not just the criminal justice system. The Anti-Corruption Network webmaster@anti-corruption-network.org exposes the same issues. A group of white-collar workers who say they have suffered as follows:

Dangerous
I refer to the Daily Telegraph article 22 March 2002 under the heading Priest quits advisory job.

Partners in crime - history!
Roger Rogerson, the old hero, who never faced a result in the Warren Lanfranchi, or Sally-Anne Huckstepp murders, was let off in my opinion when the New South Wales Government rolled the legal system (deciding what evidence to give the police prosecutor) to have the jury believe the illusion they (the Government wanted to create).

Police Chronology 1994-2001
View events in the NSW Police Force since the Wood Royal Commission began in 1994. 1994 May Justice James Wood is appointed Commissioner of the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service ('WRC').