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BBCPrisons minister James Timpson has instructed the BBC extra criminals might be tagged in long run as a substitute of being despatched to jail – however insists he isn’t “soft on crime”.
More than 30 firms, together with Microsoft and Google, will meet the federal government these days to discover how era may just assist observe offenders in the neighborhood extra successfully and take on violence in jail.
Lord Timpson says tagging extra folks as a substitute of sending them to jail is a possible choice punishment.
But critics have puzzled his earlier feedback about the United Kingdom being “addicted” to sentencing and punishment, and the way “only a third” of inmates will have to be in jail.
“I don’t think I’m soft on crime at all,” Lord Timpson says within the wide-ranging BBC interview. “I think I’m pretty tough in my style. In business, I’m tough but I use the evidence – and in this job I’m using the evidence.”
He says he’s captivated with rehabilitating offenders in jail so they do not dedicate additional crimes when launched. However, greater than 26% of grownup criminals in England and Wales cross directly to reoffend inside of a 12 months of being set free of jail.
“How do we reduce re-offending? How do we deal with people’s drug addiction, mental health problems, the fact that people leave prison they don’t know where to live, people don’t have a job? That is also a really important part of my job,” he says.
The former CEO of the Timpson Group, which supplies key reducing and shoe restore products and services, is understood for hiring ex-offenders and is a former chairman of the Prison Reform Trust.
Lord Timpson took up his function on the Ministry of Justice in July closing 12 months, when the penal gadget in England and Wales was once with regards to verge of collapse. Prisons have been complete, and months later 1000’s of inmates have been launched early as a part of an emergency plan to ease overcrowding and release area.
He says prisons are nonetheless in a state of “crisis”, with fewer than 1,000 spare puts and greater than 88,000 folks in custody in England and Wales.
“We recently opened HMP Millsike,” he says, describing the new class C jail which opened in East Yorkshire in March, with capability for as much as 1,500 inmates. “We’ve got more cells opening across the country. We need to keep building prison places because the population is going up.”
Last month, 3 jail officials have been critically injured at HMP Frankland, in Durham, once they have been attacked with makeshift guns and sizzling oil via some of the males answerable for the Manchester Arena bombing. Hashem Abedi was once being held in a separation centre – used to accommodate a small selection of essentially the most unhealthy and extremist inmates – on the class A, most safety prison.
“What happened in Franklin is absolutely shocking,” Lord Timpson says. “The level of violence in prisons is far too high – and it is increasing.
“Our jail group of workers did an out of this world process. I don’t need them to show as much as paintings pondering that there is going to be violence. I would like them to show as much as paintings serving to folks flip their lives round.”
However, the number of assaults on staff in prison is the highest in a decade, with 10,605 recorded in 2024.
Lord Timpson refutes claims that gangs are in charge of some of Britain’s biggest jails, but acknowledges that serious organised crime is the one thing that “helps to keep me unsleeping at night time”.
“Serious organised crime brings medication in and creates violence and intimidation in prisons,” he says. “This has been a long-term downside in prisons, however it’s much more of an issue when the capability is as complete as it’s.
“If we had people who went to prison who didn’t get drugs and weren’t intimidated by serious organised criminals, they’d be far more likely to engage with a sentence and get well enough so that when they leave they don’t commit further crime.”
The govt has commissioned an unbiased sentencing evaluation to discover choices to jail in an try to ease overcrowding. The evaluation will supply long-term answers for the justice gadget and read about the use and composition of non-custodial sentences, together with neighborhood choices to jail and using fines. Increased tagging can be thought to be.
There are 3 kinds of ankle tags lately used to observe offenders: alcohol, GPS, and curfew tags. A brand new learn about suggests tags that observe curfews reduce reoffending via 20%.
“We want them to have a one-way ticket – not a return back into prison or back into non-custodial sentences,” Lord Timpson says.
“What’s really important is we embrace technology and look at the evidence – tagging can have some very important benefits.”
But using digital tagging to observe offenders has been problematic. In fresh months a number of probation group of workers have instructed the BBC offenders who will have to be tagged, have now not been. The safety corporate Serco has been shriveled via the federal government to control tagging since October 2023.
“We inherited a contract with Serco and it’s been far from perfect,” Lord Timpson says. “We’re putting a lot of pressure still on them to perform, but we need to work together to make sure that people are tagged on time in the right way. Things are getting better, but we’re not there yet.”
Anthony Kirby, Serco Group CEO, instructed the BBC he’s happy the prisons minister has recognised the growth Serco has made since taking on the digital tracking carrier: “We are proud of the role we have supporting the Criminal Justice System, monitoring record numbers of people in the community and protecting public safety in partnership with HMPPS.”
