Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what guidance his Department has issued to open prisons on reducing the number of absconders.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) conducted a fundamental review of the policy and practice related of Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) last year. NOMS have subsequently introduced a system that enhances the assessment of serious offenders and restricts access to ROTL to cases where there is a clear resettlement purpose. The enhanced or “restricted ROTL” approach for serious offenders involves tighter eligibility and monitoring, more risk assessment including case file reviews by psychologists, and greater involvement by offender managers.

Changes have also been made to the allocation of prisoners to open conditions; foreign national prisoners with ongoing immigration matters and prisoners who have absconded or failed to return from ROTL during their current sentence will not be transferred to open conditions or have further ROTL.

NOMS closely monitors absconds to identify trends and patterns. All absconds or failures to return by restricted ROTL prisoners are the subject of an internal investigation by a senior manager. The lessons learned are considered by a central forum of open prison Governors under the chairmanship of the Deputy Director of Public Sector Prisons.