THOUSANDS of long-term prisoners could be freed on electronic tags under government plans to relax the rules of its early-release scheme.

Extending the home detention curfew to offenders serving sentences of four years or more will help to ease overcrowding in the 138 jails in England and Wales and would bring British prisoners into line with arrangements for foreigners.

Offenders with longer and more serious criminal records will be eligible if prison authorities believe they will comply with the curfew order, are unlikely to reoffend and are not a risk to the public. Under the scheme an offender serving seven years for drugs offences or street robbery could be freed early.

The proposal is contained in a document seen by The Times which says that eligibility will apply to prisoners serving “determinate sentences” — where courts specify the number of years served — of more than four years. It will be the fifth rule change since the scheme was introduced in 1999.

At present only those serving between three months and four years are eligible for release up to four and a half months early. They must agree to be tagged and are usually required to remain at a particular address for at least nine hours a day. Murderers, violent and sexual offenders and any other inmate judged dangerous are banned from the scheme, as is anyone on the sex offenders’ register.

Others banned include prisoners subject to a hospital order, those who have been released early taken back into custody, people jailed for fine defaulting and contempt of court and those who have breached an early-release licence and have received a further prison sentence.

Cheryl Gillan, a Conservative home affairs spokeswoman, said: “I have been asking questions on this area for many months, particularly in the light of the mismanagement of the prison population. This now seems to be the Government’s way of dealing with overcrowding.”

A total of 87,250 offenders had been released by the end of January under the scheme, which was introduced to cut the prison population. Home Office figures show that 1,127 offenders have been cautioned, convicted or tried for an offence committed while on the scheme.

But the Home Office has been disappointed with the numbers on the scheme at any one time. Initially they had expected about 4,000 low-risk offenders would be on it but the figure has usually been around 3,500. Last week it was 3,576 out of a total jail popu-lation of 75,273.

One reason for the low figure has been the caution of prison governors who assess whether an inmate should be freed.

Paul Goggins, the Prisons Minister, urged jail governors this year to make sure that they used the scheme. He added that he and the Home Secretary would back governors if the risk assessment had been done properly and something went wrong.

“It is not one of these situations where when things go wrong somebody will come looking for you,” he said.

By extending the scheme to include longer sentences, the Home Office hopes to free desperately needed prison spaces and to save millions of pounds.

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