BLUNKETT OPENS PRISON GATES TO EASE CROWDING

Record Number Of Inmates Puts System At Breaking Point

HUNDREDS of prisoners are to be released early in an attempt to ease a
desperate overcrowding crisis in Britain's jails, David Blunkett will
announce today.

People convicted of burglary, fraud and drugs offences will be freed two
months early after being fitted with electronic tags under a controversial
curfew scheme. Violent criminals and sex offenders will, however, stay in jail.

Hundreds of prisoners already released under the curfew have gone on to
commit a string of crimes, including rapes and kidnappings, and the plan to
extend the scheme was condemned last night by the Victims of Crime Trust.
"It is time this Government stopped looking at reasons to not send people
to prison," the trust's spokesman Norman Brennan, said. "The people who
will be released are the very people from whom society needs to be protected."

The Tories also condemned the move. Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Home
Secretary, said: "It is not right to drive sentencing policy by the
capacity of our jails. On the contrary, the capacity of our jails needs to
be adjusted to deal with the sentences being handed down."

But the Home Office says that electronic tagging has been a success, with
94 per cent of those freed not reoffending. And Juliet Lyon, director of
the Prison Reform Trust said: "If this means greater supervision of
prisoners and it eases population pressure, then we welcome it."

The new measures, which coincide with plans to erect prefabricated cell
blocks to create space for another 3,000 prisoners in category C and D
jails, have been prepared as concern mounts within the Prison Service about
the record numbers of people being held in jail.

The population of the 137 jails in England and Wales has risen from 66,075
at the beginning of the year to 70,183 yesterday, in spite of senior
judges' attempts to persuade the courts to be much more sparing in their
use of custody. Up to 150 prisoners a night have to be held in police cells
because there is no room for them in local prisons, and overcrowding is
particularly acute at women's jails.

Home Office sources insisted last night that plans to free more prisoners
early were not primarily intended to ease the overcrowding crisis, but to
ensure more effective post-release supervision of minor criminals.

However, with ministers meeting at 10 Downing Street yesterday to consider
ways of combating crime, and with police forces poised for a crackdown on
street robberies next month, it is clear that more prison places will be
needed for serious offenders.

Under the electronic tagging scheme a " officially known as Home Detention
Curfew orders a " prisoners serving between 12 months and four years for
non-violent offences have their sentences cut by two months as well as
their automatic parole. Now the scheme is to be extended so that those
serving less than 12 months are automatically released early, which should
mean the release of about 2,000 prisoners. At present, a prisoner can be
freed only after a risk assessment has been prepared by the Prison Service.

Mr Blunkett has ruled out executive release, under which he would order
prisoners coming to the end of their sentence to be freed. Instead he wants
individual prison governors to make greater use of their discretionary
powers to free inmates under the scheme.

Some 44,082 prisoners were released in the first three years of the scheme
after it was launched in January 1999, and latest Home Office figures show
that 671 were subsequently caught committing a total of 1,235 offences.

Many critics of the scheme believe the true number of offences to be much
higher. Mr Brennan of the Victims of Crime Trust and a serving police
officer, said: "They are probably getting out and committing many more
offences, but the detection rate is so low at the moment that will never
know for sure."

According to reports, statistics show that criminals who would otherwise
have been in jail have been responsible for rapes, serious assaults,
kidnappings and burglaries. Two were reported to have been caught with
firearms and 14 with knives.

One such offender was David Sudlow, who drugged and raped a teenage girl
four weeks after being set free from a 12-month sentence for possessing and
attempting to supply amphetamines. Sudlow, 57, is believed to have paid
someone to cut off his ankle tag, and its signals suggested he had not left
his home. He was jailed for nine years.

The Prime Minister chaired yesterday's Downing Street meeting at which
ministers were asked to make a contribution to the drive to combat robbery
amid government alarm at statistics to be published in July, which are
expected to show that street robbery will have risen by more than a quarter
in the year ending March 31, 2002. That rises of 26 per cent in 1999-2000
and 13 per cent in 2000-2001.

Mr Blunkett said the Government alone could not stem the rise. "All of us
are involved in this, not just government, but everybody in the community,
including parents, in getting a grip on what's going on," he said.

But the meeting was greeted with scepticism by the Conservatives and some
police officers who saw it as a headline-grabbing initiative.