Member

The noble Baroness’s Amendment 119 on digital sentence management raises an important point that has been discussed recently in several debates and discussions in the context of accidental releases. The Minister has promised a move to more use of technology to control releases. I am listening to what he has to say. Many of us have been amazed by how much sentence management is still dependent on paper records. In that case, it is no wonder that mistakes are made. The reliance on paper records also causes a lack of co-ordination as prisoners are moved from prison to prison. That process is worse given the current overcrowding. Bad co-ordination of prisoner movements and prisoner management causes mistakes and increases the capacity for further mistakes to be made.