The head of Britain's probation watchdog has warned that convicts freed from jail early are not being properly supervised.
Almost nine out of 10 of those charged with another serious offense after their early release were under the lowest level of supervision, a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation found.
Chief inspector of prison probation Justin Russell warned that use of the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) system was "underused" and "inconsistent."
Some 87,657 offenders were in the probation system — slightly more than in the UK's prisons — in March 2021, of which 98.4 percent were subject to the lowest grade of oversight. For those offenders, regular police, probation, prison, and council services to flag up concerns are not required.
At the same time, 168 probationers were charged with serious repeat offenses. Of those, 88 percent of those were also under minimum monitoring.
"Some areas interpret the criteria differently and aren't referring enough cases for formal, multi-agency management," Russell said. "Essentially, they are underused: for cases managed at the lower level one, contact is not sufficient, reviewing is too often unsatisfactory."
The number of cases in the MAPPA system had risen by 70 percent since 2011. But less than two percent of those were at the highest level of supervision, which requires meetings with senior managers.
Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor also warned that some cases were "not getting the attention they deserved," while inspector of constabulary Wendy Williams described a "lack of consistency and coherency in MAPPA."
The Ministry of Justice insisted the system was still an "effective tool."
"This report recognises that MAPPA is an effective tool, helping to protect the public from the most dangerous offenders, and we have introduced a range of measures to ensure it is used as robustly as possible.
"These include improvements to guidance, training and the flow of information between agencies so that MAPPA arrangements are applied consistently across England and Wales."