\n<\/p>\n
Alex Norris has been unable to say how many prisoners freed early from jail this week have been tagged, despite previous reassurances from the justice department.<\/p>\n
In an interview on Sunday, the justice secretary said it was \u201ctoo soon\u201d to say how many of the roughly 700 male prisoners let out on Thursday had been fitted with monitoring devices.<\/p>\n
The government has introduced a \u201cpresumption of electronic tagging\u201d for offenders released early from prisons in England and Wales to help manage severe overcrowding.<\/p>\n
The first wave of releases began on Thursday, with nearly 5,000 prisoners due to be freed in stages over the next year as the Sentencing Act 2026 comes into force.<\/p>\n
Asked how many of those released so far had been tagged, Norris told the BBC\u2019s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: \u201cI don\u2019t have that figure today, it only happened on Thursday. You know, there can be a bit of a lag.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have that number. But you know, we\u2019re very candid about who\u2019s leaving prison and when they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he knew if released domestic abusers have been tagged or not, he said: \u201cIt would be too soon to know that, as it was only on Thursday. We\u2019ve been talking to every victim to to offer them the chance to say what controls they\u2019d like to see over that individual.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m well aware of the past in tagging. Over the last year, performance has increased significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several prisoners released last week told the Guardian that they had not been tagged.<\/p>\n
Michael Bogle, a former bus driver who left HMP Wandsworth on Thursday having served 78 days in prison after breaching a 32-week suspended sentence for shoplifting, said he had no idea when he was going to be tagged. \u201cI have an appointment with probation officers on Thursday, but as far I know it could take months before I actually get given a tag,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bogle, who is taking anti-psychotic drugs and has more than 100 convictions including for common assault and drug possession, was told in prison that he would be housed in a bail hostel and had been promised a place in south-east London. However, he said he had instead been housed in a bed and breakfast facility in north-west London.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am running out of money, and if I have to shoplift a sandwich to stop being hungry, I will just have to do it,\u201d he said. \u201cI won\u2019t have a choice. But I really do not want to go back to prison \u2013 it is a pigeon-infested, rat-infested place and people are dying in the conditions there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prisoners thanked the prime minister as they celebrated walking free from jail on Thursday. One told the press as he left HMP Durham: \u201cJustice system, what justice system? Thank you, Andy Burnham.\u201d<\/p>\n
A prisoner released from HMP Cardiff after being jailed for burglary said he would \u201cprobably be back in the next month or two\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ministers intervened to exclude rapists and the most serious child sexual offenders from early release, after criticism of the policy over the summer.<\/p>\n
The rules will also not apply to those guilty of manslaughter, such as the killers of PC Andrew Harper, who died in the line of duty in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alex Norris has been unable to say how many prisoners freed early from jail this week have been tagged, despite previous reassurances from the justice department. In an interview on Sunday, the justice secretary said it was \u201ctoo soon\u201d to say how many of the roughly 700 male prisoners let out on Thursday had been<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[25368,2282,7903,2413,2414,2412,15474,5804],"class_list":{"0":"post-52397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-earlyrelease","9":"tag-justice","10":"tag-prisoners","11":"tag-prisons","12":"tag-probation","13":"tag-secretary","14":"tag-tagged","15":"tag-unable"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}