Eighteen offenders are due for early release in Bedfordshire next month as part of a national programme to “ease pressure” on prison space, a meeting heard.
The probation service will supervise them within the county and is confident it can manage the situation, despite its financial constraints, the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel was told.
“This has been the county force’s busiest summer for a long time, with significant increases in incidents and cases,” according to Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner John Tizard.
“We’ve had a fatal police shooting (in Bedford), a rail crash (near Elstow), five homicides, the process of extraditing the Tate brothers from the United States, and extraditing the suspect from South Africa in respect of one of the homicides,” he explained.
“There’ve been a number of other incidents too, as well as the Bedford River Festival which took 150 officers. We’ve 80-plus county lines and a significant number of organised crime syndicates.
“The pressures have been quite significant. It’s no excuse for performance, but it’s putting all this into that perspective.”
He described the early release of prisoners as having been “a moving position”, saying: “We now know 18 prisoners will be released early in Bedfordshire in October.
“They’re known and named, and the probation service will have responsibility for their supervision. The police will be informed of those releases. It puts pressure on the offender management unit.
“If there’s a level of recall, the police often have to get involved. The probation service is confident it can manage the position, but it also has resource restraints.
“Early release is probably inevitable given the current state of the prison estate across the country. Even if you build new prisons, you can’t build them at the pace required.”
Insufficient detectives
There are some areas of significant challenge in terms of overall performance in Bedfordshire, “although we’re moving in the right direction in aspects such as responding to the public”, added the PCC.
“The police are consistently achieving 90 per cent and often above of 999 calls answered within ten seconds, which is the national standard.
“The bigger challenge is getting to ‘immediate cases’, which should be within 15 minutes and where the national standard is 80 per cent plus.
“We’re currently well below that. We’re making progress and are in the high 50s (per cent) on a regular basis now, but that has to improve.
“Another area is solving crime. A new report says investigating crime is an issue on a national basis. That’s partly because there are insufficient qualified detectives.
“Bedfordshire has more of these than a year ago and quite a considerable number in training. The solve rate is better than it was, but there’s still some way to go.
“Domestic abuse and domestic violence are a priority and very much a target for the police. We’re making significant improvements in that area, but there’s some way to go.
“It’s the repeat offences. We’re using the orders available through the courts to hold the perpetrators to account. That’s an area of great focus.”
Asked about progress on police reform, Mr Tizard replied, “The government’s intention is to replace PCC’s with a new form of governance from May 2028.
“The ambition is that mayors would take over the role. The Police Reform Bill was due to be presented to Parliament within the last two weeks.
“But that hasn’t happened, and the expectation is this legislation won’t be presented for its first reading until January. The government is still saying it aims to achieve the same timetable, although it’s a tight schedule.”
By Euan Duncan,
Local Democracy Reporter
