Blunkett 'Regrets' Imposing Indeterminate Sentences

Indeterminate sentences imposed on the most serious offenders have been a failure, the former home secretary who introduced the regime has admitted. David, now Lord, Blunkett told the House of Lords on Tuesday that he regretted creating the system. "The original intention," he said, "was that only those who posed a really serious risk to the population would be subject to such orders. That did not come about, and I regret that very strongly." His comments came as part of a Lords' questions session in which Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood asked the justice minister, Lord Faulks, for details of how many foreign national prisoners serving indeterminate sentences had been released under provisions of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. That legislation allows for foreign prisoners to be released and removed from the UK without approval of the Parole Board. Lord Faulks replied that 261 had benefited from those provisions over the past three years. Lord Brown told peers that domestic prisoners feel a "sense of injustice and frustration, not to say anger" at the fact that their foreign counterparts appear to have preferential treatment under the legislation. Lord Faulks replied: "This government are committed ... to removing foreign criminals to their own countries where possible. They must be punished but not at the expense of British taxpayers, therefore they are removed when the relevant section permits their removal. "Of course the secretary of state actively considers the position that he has a power to change the release test but, at the moment, he is not satisfied that it is appropriate to do so." Source: The Brief

Crime Does Pay: MOJ Fails to collect £1.6bn in Illegal Assets

Criminals owe £1.6 billion to taxpayers but only a fraction will be recovered because of defects in the system of collecting illegal assets, the spending watchdog said on Friday. The system of confiscation orders - the main way of stripping criminals of their ill-gotten gains - has "fundamental weaknesses", the National Audit Office said. Its report confirms that crime pays, with authorities only seizing an eighth of the £1.6 billion owed by criminals under existing orders. Orders are used in less than 1 per cent of convictions. One of the main reasons so much is "uncollectable" is that many offenders have successfully hidden assets, according to the report. Another factor cited was the setting of "unrealistically high" order amounts.