Criminals out on probation ‘kill 83 a year’
‘Enough is enough’
CRIMINALS have been charged with nearly 400 murders while under official supervision.
Damning figures reveal the public is being put in danger by offenders who commit chilling crimes despite being on probation.
They are meant to be monitored closely, but 83 a year are being hauled before the courts for murder or manslaughter.
Offenders on probation were charged with 382 murders between 2012 and 2016, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice – the department which changed the regime for managing criminals in the community in 2014.
They were also charged with 200 attempted murders, 34 manslaughters, 1,024 rapes or attempted rapes, 134 kidnaps, 54 arson attacks and 457 other serious sexual or violent offences – a total of 2,285 violent and sexual offences, or the equivalent of nine serious attacks a week.
Of the 2,829 cases of homicide, including both murder and manslaughter, between 2012 and 2016, one in seven was carried out by criminals under supervision.
The figures, released by the MoJ in response to Freedom of Information requests, raise fresh concerns over whether dangerous offenders are being released too soon – and whether the authorities are able to monitor them safely.
Among the most notorious cases of monitoring failures is that of Joanne Dennehy, who murdered three men in 2013 while under the supervision of probation workers.
Fuelled by a ‘sadistic lust for blood’, Dennehy killed Lukasz Slaboszewski, Kevin Lee and John Chapman in March 2013. At the time, she was serving a 12-month community order for assault.
She was supposedly being supervised by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Probation service, but simply skipped appointments after moving to Lincolnshire.
David Spencer, of the Centre For Crime Prevention thinktank, said last night: ‘These shocking figures show that, despite the recent Government shake-up, probation in the UK is still not fit for purpose. For even one criminal to be released under supervision, only to commit a serious crime, is unacceptable.
‘For the figures to be in the thousands, and to include almost 400 murders, is staggering. It is painfully clear that an urgent review of the current system is needed.’
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron added: ‘ This is scandalous. Probation and supervision is supposed to be for offenders who are low risk and yet it seems some of the most dangerous people are being let out to commit further crimes, including murder. Enough is enough. An urgent investigation must be conducted and ministers need to be held accountable.’
Bob Neill, who was Tory chairman of the justice select committee in the last Parliament, said: ‘This seems to prove that the probation arrangements are not working properly. They are not rehabilitating offenders nor protecting the public.’
The Government introduced the £3.7billion Transforming Rehabilitation programme in 2015 in a bid to tackle reoffending – which costs society £15billion a year. The overhaul created a National Probation Service to deal with high-risk offenders, with the remainder assigned to 21 partly privatised Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs).
The reforms saw all prisoners sentenced to a year or less given 12 months of supervision on release.
Under a payment-by-results scheme, the CRCs check whether criminals are complying with court requirements and help rehabilitate them.
Damningly, the number of so- called Serious Further Offences – serious crimes committed by offenders on probation – has soared 30 per cent since the Government shook up probation, from 404 to 522.
Ian Lawrence of Napo, the probation officers’ union, said thousands of staff had been laid off since the shake-up, meaning staff were increasingly supervising offenders remotely.
He said: ‘ The situation is going to get worse. If offenders are not being seen, or not as frequently, and the level of supervision is not what it should be, then mistakes will occur. There are people on the streets who are not being properly supervised, which means they are a real and present danger to the public.’
An MoJ spokesman said: ‘Keeping the public safe is our top priority and offenders on licence are subject to a strict set of conditions on release.
‘A thorough investigation is always carried out when someone commits a serious further offence to see whether anything could have been done differently.’