Labour urged to cut prison recalls in bid to free up jail spaces

Many of those who do breach their licences have been recalled because they were homeless and failed to comply with curfews.

Now, Nacro is encouraging ministers to overhaul the system to reduce the numbers being put back behind bars for minor breaches of their licence.

Chief executive of Nacro Enver Solomon said: “The power to recall someone to prison plays an important role in protecting the public, but the current scale of recalls is neither sustainable nor effective.

“Addressing the scale of recalls must be a central part of the government’s response to the prison capacity crisis.

“Without this, prison places freed up through earlier releases will simply be filled up again by people recalled to prison.

“The government needs to break the revolving door of custody by addressing the reasons people are recalled and ensuring on release that people have the housing and support they need to rebuild their lives.”

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According to the report, entitled “The Rise of Recalls”, many convicted criminals breached their licences for reasons as trivial as missing probation appointments due to illness or publishing posts on Facebook.

In one case, a man was recalled to prison for 23 months after breaching a licence condition on Facebook, having later found to have been a victim of mistaken identity.

According to the report, the number of people recalled to prison has more than doubled in the past five years and at any one time accounts for about 12,500, or one in seven of all prisoners.

In the 12 months to March, there were more than 51,000 recalls to custody, compared with the 47,000 admissions to prison after sentencing, reports The Times.

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On top of this, last year, nine out of every ten prison beds freed up by people being released were filled by someone else recalled to custody.

Official Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data from the first three months of this year, for the first time on record, more people were recalled to prison than released.

An MoJ spokesman said: “Less than one in seven offenders in custody are on recall, and it is a vital tool to keep the public safe.

“The numbers of recalls and first-time releases also can’t be compared as the same prisoner can be counted more than once.

“This government inherited prisons in crisis but we are fixing this, reforming the length of time people spend on recall to reduce the prison population, building 14,000 new places, launching the biggest ever expansion of tagging, and giving victims a say in the strict licence conditions of offenders.”