Prisoners: Home Leave Offences (Hansard, 22 November 1993)

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, the Home Office is currently considering how statistics on offences which are committed by prisoners on home leave can best be collated centrally, but I regret to say that, at present, such information is not available.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the fact that he no doubt finds it convenient that the information is not available? Is he further aware that as recently as last week a man called Bewley was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment and that that man had some years previously also been convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment but had been released after 11 years of that sentence had been served and was able therefore to participate in a further murder? Do Her Majesty's Government really intend to look into the scandal of failure to protect the public from dangerous people who are released and are quite willing to commit the offence again?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, I must tell my noble friend that I would have found it a great deal more convenient if I had been able to give him the statistics. On my noble friend's specific question about the person convicted of murder who had previously murdered, I honestly think that he is going a little wider than the Question which is about home leave. The person he is talking about had been released after his sentence and had not committed the crime while on home leave. But my noble friend makes a correct and worrying point which concerns everyone interested in both the protection of the public and the judicial process.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, asked a similar Question about a month ago. He was told in response from the Government Front Bench that there was a Home Office review of home leave. How can such a review take place when the statistics are not available centrally?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, one of the objects of the review, in addition to looking at the operation of home leave and temporary release schemes, is to examine how various statistics, like the ones I have been asked for today and my noble friend Lord Ferrers was asked for on the previous occasion, can be collected.

§ Lord Wigoder
My Lords, is there any doubt that the great majority of convicted criminals, to use the 22 terminology of the Question, complete their term of home release perfectly satisfactorily as part of their programme for re-introduction into the community?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
No, my Lords, I do not believe that there is any doubt that the majority do in fact fulfil their programme of home leaves and aftercare completely satisfactorily. However, it remains a simple fact that we obviously have to be concerned about those who re-offend while on home leave.

§ Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that this matter illustrates a certain amount of humbug about the nature of imprisonment for life, as it is called? It means imprisonment for an indefinite period. Would it not be better if the courts imposed definite sentences instead of indefinite periods?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, as I said earlier, that goes slightly wider than a Question concerning home leave, which applies usually to those with definite sentences. My noble friend is right to point to a worrying situation when people who have been sentenced for serious crimes are released after their term of imprisonment and then re-offend, especially when the crime is as serious as murder.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, is the Minister aware that Home Office research such as that contained in the excellent paper Taking Offenders out of Circulation, as well as independent research such as that carried out by Professor Jean Floud, shows that "dangerousness" as a characteristic is notoriously difficult to predict? Does the Minister agree that the only way to give 100 per cent. protection to the public, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, suggests, is by not granting home leave at all? If the noble Lord has any ideas on predicting which prisoners will re-offend on home leave, he should lay that information before your Lordships' House.

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, it is difficult. It is one of the tasks which the prison authorities have to carry out. Obviously, when they decide whether or not to grant home leave, they have to look at the history of the criminal involved, his home circumstances, the situation of known victims, the offender's behaviour in prison and how he has responded to previous perhaps temporary releases or home leave. All these factors have to be taken into account when the decision is made.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, perhaps I may ask my noble friend whether these statistics, not necessarily limited to home leave as such, will be Available before the House debates the Criminal Justice Bill?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, I very much doubt that. If the working party reports (as we hope it will) before the end of the year, it will take a little time to collect meaningful statistics over a period of, let us say, 12 months. Therefore, we shall not have the statistics ready before the debate on the Criminal Justice Bill.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, if the House will forgive my intervening again, can an attempt be made to let us know beforehand on this matter? The Government have the material: it could be very relevant to the debate on the Criminal Justice Bill. Can some attempt be made to make that material available?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, I shall certainty look into the matter. One problem is that the material is held in individual prisons and in the individual records of the prisoners concerned. Obviously, some effort will have to be made to collate and collect that information. But statistics do not appear without a great deal of work being done on them and without a great deal of time elapsing.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his last answer caused a great deal of ribaldry throughout the House? We have comparatively few prisons—130, I understand—and we have very complicated and efficient computers. Yet the Minister says that it is impossible to collect those statistics from 130 prisoners. Come off it! Surely, the noble Lord can do better than that.

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, if the noble Lord had been listening he would realise that I did do better than that. There are a good deal more than 130 prisoners. There are 130 prisons, but there are a great many prisoners. It is the individual records in those 130 prisons which would have to be brought together and the information collated. As something of a statistician myself, I am aware that it is not possible easily or quickly to collect statistics: anyone who knows about them will know that.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the Government, in looking at this matter, will give priority to the protection of the public? Will it be laid down that if there is danger of the repetition of a serious offence, such as the one I quoted of murder, when a person is released, that should be a decisive factor in consideration of the matter?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
Yes, my Lords, I agree with my noble friend. Last July, the director general of the Prison Service issued guidance to all governors asking them to look carefully at procedures to ensure that they conformed with national policy and that matters of public protection, as well as the position of the criminal on reaching the end of his sentence, were borne in mind.

§ Lord Renton
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that only a prophet with divine inspiration can tell whether there will be the commission of a similar offence or not, and that we do not have such prophets?

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
How do you know?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, for sure, I am certainly not one of them. I can, however, say to my noble friend that that is the kind of difficult decision which the prison authorities have to make every time they decide whether to grant home leave to a prisoner.