MORE than 80 per cent of prisoners given a jail term under guidelines to protect the public from violent or high risk offenders have been recalled to prison for breaching conditions, an inspection report has revealed.
Extended Custodial Sentences (ECS), were introduced five years ago during an overhaul of the criminal justice system.
Since the implementation of the new sentencing arrangements in 2010 there have been 2,505 prisoners released on licence with various conditions and monitoring arrangements imposed.
ECS prisoners are usually released upon completion of half of their custodial sentence by the parole commissioner, but only if it they deem the risk to the public can be safely supervised in the community.
The sentences are imposed by the court in cases of dangerous, violent offenders. However of the 106 ECS prisoners released from jail in the last five years, 86 have been recalled to prison at some stage.
This is much higher than prisoners serving other types of custodial sentence or life sentence prisoners who must serve a tariff before being considered for release back into the community.
The Criminal Justice Inspectorate (CJI) chief inspector Brendan McGuigan said that hostels should be used to monitor some offenders who have breached their release conditions, in order to reduce the cost of returning criminals to prison.
Mr McGuigan said the use of "step up, step down" facilities could be cost-effective.
"We believe it would be beneficial to consider the use of hostels or other 'step-up, step-down' facilities as an alternative to direct recall to prison, where it is appropriate and the risk of further offending and need to maintain public safety, can be effectively managed."
Inspectors found the impact on the criminal justice system included an increased prison population, additional demand on probation services and extra workloads for the Parole Commissioners as well the Department of Justice to expedite requests.
They also recommended more work being done to prepare inmates for living in the community prior to release. A large majority of those returned to prison had drug or alcohol problems.
"This inspection report has shown that offenders who have attempted to deal with their offending behaviour while in prison and are released on licence, can through engagement with probation staff and the support of family, friends and their community, move on and contribute positively to society", Mr McGuigan said.
"However, others who do not address their offending behaviour, experience mental illness, have limited family support, poor life skills or education and may face homelessness, alcohol or drug addiction, struggle to keep from re-offending or breaching their parole or licence conditions and are recalled to custody.
"At one level recall can been seen as a failure or setback in the rehabilitation process and efforts to reduce re-offending. But it is also an effective intervention when an offender's behaviour means supervision in the community is no longer deemed safe, or there is an increase in the risk of further offences being committed."
