Five drug offenders re-jailed

Saturday 30 July 2016

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that of 80 prisoners released from jail, a total of five have been re-imprisoned for drugs offences - a record described as "good" by Jersey's Chief Probation Officer.

The request was for the period 2010-2015 and shows that in those five years a total of 80 adults who had served a jail sentence for drugs offences were given a Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL).

Of that total, 10 breached their conditions and had their licence revoked, while another five have been re-convicted on drugs charges.

Chief Probation Officer Brian Heath said the figures for those breaching temporary licences was "structured and good."

Responding to the FOI request, Mr Heath said: "The temporary release scheme is structured and good at assessing risk.

"The FOI reply should be set in context in that early release is strictly risk assessed. We contribute to this process so only those who are likely to abide by the licence terms and unlikely to re-offend are released. We then provide supervision during the release period.  The stats released show that the process is working and show that only one in eight drug offenders released under the scheme fail to comply with all the conditions." 

The FOI request said: “In order to correct this error, 42 hours have been spent collating this information, far exceeding the time limit, but it is appropriate to set the record straight.”