08/09/2006

Report criticises prisoner checks

Four out of ten offenders are released without proper checks being conducted to assess whether they pose a risk to the public, a report has claimed.

The report, which was written by prisons watchdog Anne Owers, chief probation inspector Andrew Bridges and Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Ronnie Flanagan, was commissioned after the Probation Service was criticised for failing to keep a proper check on offenders who went on to commit other serious crimes after being released.

These included Anthony Rice, who murdered mother-of-one Naomi Bryant, nine months after he was freed from a 16-year jail sentence; Damien Hanson, who was on probation when he stabbed financier John Monckton to death at his home in Chelsea in 2004.

The report said that there needed to be a improvement in co-operation between the police, prisons and probation service. Police were not always informed about the release of inmates, the report said, while prisons often failed to refer to other agencies regarding the supervision of offenders.

Mr Bridges said: "While it may never be possible to eliminate risk when an offender is being managed in the community, it is right to expect the work to be done to a consistently high standard."

A spokesperson for the Home Office said that harm assessments and checks on high-risk offenders had improved since the inspection was carried out a year ago.

(KMcA)

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