Four prisoners slip out of jail every day

Four prisoners are walking out of prisons without authorisation every day, new figures revealed today by the Liberal Democrats show. Over 13,500 prisoners have escaped, absconded or disappeared while on temporary release in the last 10 years.

The revelations come after the Government admitted that 393 prisoners have walked out of Leyhill Open Prison since 1999, including twenty-two murderers, seven rapists and five with manslaughter convictions.

Commenting on the figures, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Clegg MP said:

"This will be another serious blow to the public's faith in the criminal justice system.

"This high level raises serious questions about the way prisoners are risk assessed. Prisoners who are likely to abscond from an open prison should never be put there in the first place.

"These figures raise the possibility that prisoners are being re-categorised early in order to free up cells in higher security jails. Overcrowding elsewhere in the prison system can be no excuse for placing dangerous or untrustworthy prisoners in open conditions, where they may pose a threat to the public.

"We urgently need to find out how many of these abscondees have gone on to commit further crimes when they should have been in custody."