Prisons minister James Timpson has informed the BBC extra criminals might be tagged in future as a substitute of being despatched to jail – however insists he is not “smooth on crime”.
Greater than 30 corporations, together with Microsoft and Google, will meet the federal government immediately to discover how expertise may assist monitor offenders in the neighborhood extra successfully and sort out violence in jail.
Lord Timpson says tagging extra individuals as a substitute of sending them to jail is a possible different punishment.
However critics have questioned his earlier feedback concerning the UK being “addicted” to sentencing and punishment, and the way “solely a 3rd” of inmates must be in jail.
“I do not assume I am smooth on crime in any respect,” Lord Timpson says within the wide-ranging BBC interview. “I feel I am fairly powerful in my model. In enterprise, I am powerful however I take advantage of the proof – and on this job I am utilizing the proof.”
He says he’s obsessed with rehabilitating offenders in jail so they do not commit additional crimes when launched. Nonetheless, greater than 26% of grownup criminals in England and Wales go on to reoffend inside a 12 months of being set free of jail.
“How will we cut back re-offending? How will we cope with individuals’s drug habit, psychological well being issues, the truth that individuals go away jail they do not know the place to stay, individuals haven’t got a job? That can be a very necessary a part of my job,” he says.
The previous CEO of the Timpson Group, which supplies key reducing and shoe restore companies, is thought for hiring ex-offenders and is a former chairman of the Jail Reform Belief.
Lord Timpson took up his function on the Ministry of Justice in July final 12 months, when the penal system in England and Wales was near breaking level. Prisons have been full, and months later hundreds of inmates have been launched early as a part of an emergency plan to ease overcrowding and unlock area.
He says prisons are nonetheless in a state of “disaster”, with fewer than 1,000 spare locations and greater than 88,000 individuals in custody in England and Wales.
“We not too long ago opened HMP Millsike,” he says, describing the new category C prison which opened in East Yorkshire in March, with capability for as much as 1,500 inmates. “We have extra cells opening throughout the nation. We have to preserve constructing jail locations as a result of the inhabitants goes up.”
Final month, three prison officers were seriously injured at HMP Frankland, in Durham, after they have been attacked with makeshift weapons and sizzling oil by one of many males answerable for the Manchester Area bombing. Hashem Abedi was being held in a separation centre – used to accommodate a small variety of essentially the most harmful and extremist inmates – on the class A, most safety jail.
“What occurred in Frankland is completely surprising,” Lord Timpson says. “The extent of violence in prisons is way too excessive – and it’s growing.
“Our jail employees did an unimaginable job. I do not need them to show as much as work considering that there is going to be violence. I would like them to show as much as work serving to individuals flip their lives round.”
Nonetheless, the variety of assaults on employees in jail is the very best in a decade, with 10,605 recorded in 2024.
Lord Timpson refutes claims that gangs are accountable for a few of Britain’s greatest jails, however acknowledges that severe organised crime is the one factor that “retains me awake at evening”.
“Severe 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 full as it’s.
“If we had individuals who went to jail who did not get medication and weren’t intimidated by severe organised criminals, they’d be much more prone to have interaction with a sentence and get properly sufficient in order that once they go away they do not commit additional crime.”
The federal government has commissioned an unbiased sentencing evaluate to discover alternate options to jail in an try to ease overcrowding. The evaluate will present long-term options for the justice system and study the use and composition of non-custodial sentences, together with group alternate options to jail and using fines. Elevated tagging may even be thought-about.
There are three kinds of ankle tags at present used to watch offenders: alcohol, GPS, and curfew tags. A brand new research suggests tags that monitor curfews minimize reoffending by 20%.
“We wish them to have a one-way ticket – not a return again into jail or again into non-custodial sentences,” Lord Timpson says.
“What’s actually necessary is we embrace expertise and take a look at the proof – tagging can have some crucial advantages.”
However using digital tagging to watch offenders has been problematic. In latest months a number of probation employees have informed the BBC offenders who must be tagged, haven’t been. The safety firm Serco has been contracted by the federal government to handle tagging since October 2023.
“We inherited a contract with Serco and it has been removed from good,” Lord Timpson says. “We’re placing a whole lot of stress nonetheless on them to carry out, however we have to work collectively to ensure that persons are tagged on time in the fitting approach. Issues are getting higher, however we’re not there but.”
Anthony Kirby, Serco Group CEO, informed the BBC he’s happy the prisons minister has recognised the progress Serco has made since taking on the digital monitoring service: “We’re pleased with the function we have now supporting the Prison Justice System, monitoring document numbers of individuals in the neighborhood and defending public security in partnership with HMPPS.”
