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Press Releases
Panorama: Prisons Unlocked
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BBC One's Panorama investigates claims that unsuitable and dangerous
convicts are being sent to open prisons to help solve the
overcrowding crisis.
Reporter Ross McWilliam examines the case of
a teenager who killed a man and was sent to an open jail from
which he escaped just 18 months into a 10-year sentence.
And
he tracks down a drug trafficker who simply walked out of an open
prison on home leave and returned to Holland never to serve the
rest of his sentence.
Open Prisons are meant to be for low risk prisoners, assessed as
unlikely to escape.
But Panorama can reveal there are more than 13,000
cases of prisoners escaping (or simply failing to return from "home leave") in the last decade.
That number includes more than 130
murderers – as well as violent criminals of every kind.
As prison overcrowding increases both the Prison Officers
Association and the National Association of Probation Officers believe Open Prisons are being used to ease the pressures and
could have potentially fatal consequences.
The investigation has obtained leaked emails and memos from
within the Prison Service describing the risk assessment of
convicts for transfer to Open Prison as a "joke".
They also
complain that the Open system is being put under extreme pressure
to take increasingly dangerous prisoners.
The film examines in detail some of the cases of escapees who
have gone on to commit serious crimes while on the run.
These
include an armed robber with a track record of escaping from
Secure prisons placed in an Open jail.
He escaped and – with an accomplice – committed another violent
robbery armed with a gun and an eight-inch knife.
There is also the
case of a murderer who escaped from an Open Prison and killed
again before committing suicide.
Bereaved families and police investigators express their
frustration with a system they believe has let them down and
which puts us all at risk.
In a statement, the Ministry of Justice told Panorama: "The
numbers of absconds from prisons is at its lowest level in the
last 10 years. All prisoners located in open conditions have
been rigorously risk assessed."
Panorama: Prisons Unlocked, BBC One, 8.30pm,
Monday 5 May 2008
PH
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