Jailed... only to be freed early
IT is a scheme that has allowed thousands of prisoners to walk free from Scotland’s jails after serving as little as a quarter of their sentences.
Billed as a ‘progressive’ move upon its introduction 12 years ago, the Home Detention Curfew (HDC) scheme was designed to ease low-risk offenders back into society by allowing them access to family life, training and employment opportunities.
But the scheme has been dogged by a ‘breach’ rate of more than 20 per cent and a number of highprofile cases of criminals reoffending after being freed early.
Introduced by Labour justice secretary Cathy Jamieson, it allows prisoners, mainly on shorter sentences, to serve up to a quarter of it on licence in the community while having their movements tracked. An electronic tag is usually worn around the ankle.
Those released under HDC can be required to remain in their homes for up to 12 hours a day and can be recalled to prison if they breach their curfew.
According to the Scottish Prison Service, the decision to release any prisoner on the HDC scheme must take into consideration ‘protecting the public at large’, ‘preventing reoffending by the offender’ and ‘securing the successful reintegration of the prisoner into the community’.
Between 2012 and 2017 alone, almost 9,000 criminals were freed from Scotland’s jails under the scheme, including violent thugs, fraudsters and even a prisoner convicted of an acid attack. Emily Bowen, 18, was jailed for 21 months
last August after being convicted of injuring Molly Young, 17, with fluid containing sulphuric acid. Bowen put drain cleaner into her victim’s viola case, which then poured over her legs.
Earlier this year, it emerged she had been released under the HDC scheme after serving only five months of her sentence.
In another case, Lorraine McLaren was released from prison under HDC in March after serving nine months of a twoand-a-half-year sentence imposed for her role in a huge property fraud. The 1-year-old was convicted of money laundering and mortgage fraud. Her husband, Edwin McLaren, 2, was given 11 years after being found guilty of persuading victims to sign over their homes as part of the £1.6million scam.
In 2016, former boxing champion Lee McAllister served only ten weeks of a nine-month sentence for an assault in which he broke a man’s jaw before being released under the HDC scheme.
Last August, Myles Joyce was placed under an HDC little more than a year into a three-year prison sentence for carrying a knife in a public place. Two months later, he admitted perverting the course of justice by giving police a false name, struggling with six police officers, assaulting one by spitting on him and being in possession of heroin.
Joyce, 27, was given ten months behind bars for the offences and ordered to serve an additional 18 months, the unexpired portion of his original sentence.
Despite the problems blighting HDCs, Nicola Sturgeon is expected to press ahead with a new Management of Offenders Bill this year, further expanding the use of tagging as an alternative to jail.