It’s joke justice (cont.) as 1 in 5 home curfew orders broken
SOARING numbers of criminals are breaching ‘soft-touch’ home curfews, sparking calls for a review of the system.
More than one in five home detention orders, such as electronic tags, are breached.
Some offenders go years before they are detected – or are never tracked down by police.
Scottish Prison Service figures show that the number of people breaching a home detention curfew (HDC) is up by nearly a quarter in a year.
It comes two months after James Wright was jailed for stabbing to death a father of three, after destroying his electronic tag and disappearing for six months.
The latest bombshell figures have led to more calls for the system to be overhauled.
The Scottish Daily Mail revealed yesterday that 15 Scots offenders have been ‘unlawfully at large’ for five years or more after breaching an HDC – including one who has been on the run for 4,003 days – nearly 11 years.
Scottish Conservatives justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘The fact an increasing number of criminals are breaching home detention curfews suggests these decisions are being taken too lightly.
‘If sentences were of sufficient length, and the rehabilitation infrastructure vastly improved, the integration of these individuals would be far more success- ful. But what we see is a softtouch approach from the SNP Government which is spreading across the justice system.’
HDCs, introduced in 2006, allow some prisoners to serve up to a quarter of their sentence in the community while wearing an electronic tag.
The SPS figures, released following a freedom of information request by the Scottish Tories, show there were 1,452 HDC releases in 2017/18. Of these, 300 breaches took place.
When cases where the offender is found to not be at fault, such as equipment failure, are excluded, 261 offenders were ordered to return to custody. The number of breaches was up 24.5 per cent compared with 241 in 2016/17.
The Wright case sparked a public outcry. He murdered father-of-three Craig McLelland, 31, in Paisley while at large. Wright, 25, had 16 previous convictions.
Since 2006, 21,024 offenders have been released on HDCs. Of these, 4,881 orders – 23 per cent – have been breached.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Home detention curfew is an established and important mechanism in preparing individuals for release from custody, and is only available to those prisoners who have been assessed as being at low risk of reoffending.’