Compensation for Late Release

In the last three years prisoners have received more than 1million in compensation due to them being released late from prison. The Ministry of Justice has revealed the figure for England and Wales which have shown that 280 inmates were paid on average 3,600 each. The news of these ridiculous compensation payments has circulated at a time when the government attempts to reduce all areas of public spending. The payments are given to prisoners when the prison authorities fail to keep their commitment to release the inmate on the agreed date. The prisoners are currently able to claim 110 compensation for each day they are kept inside beyond their agreed release dat. The number of inmates which have been paid compensation accounts for less than 1% of the 80,000 inmates being held. The figures have come to light have a request under the Freedom of Information act, they showed that inmates received 276,000 in the financial year to the end of March 2008, 491,059 in the year after and 260,000 in the period of 2009-2010. These payments are usually authorised due to mistakes by prison managers who have failed to calculate the correct release date for individual inmates. The calculations are believed to be difficult due to the uncertainty surrounding the exact amount of time a person is to be held for due to the time spent in police custody or on remand being deducted from their sentence. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice stated that prisoners had the same rights as anybody; they are able to make compensation claims against authorities when wrongdoing has occurred.