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Bail hostel project sparks secrecy row

By John Hirst

Bail hostel project sparks secrecy row

A secrecy row has broken out over the refusal by ministers to reveal the addresses of 175 bail hostels which have opened in residential neighbourhoods.

Suspects on bail and prisoners freed early from jail are housed in the properties ? usually rented houses ? run by the private company ClearSprings, which is not required to consult with the local council or neighbours before opening a new hostel.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has released a list of the hostels' partial postcodes, and a separate list of how many are in each parliamentary constituency, but he refused a Tory demand for the precise locations to be disclosed.

Mr Straw also revealed that ClearSprings was paid £8.3 million for the bail hostel programme from June 2007 until November last year.

Nick Herbert, the shadow justice secretary, said: "The Government has failed to provide enough prison places so they're now paying out millions of pounds to house offenders with minimal supervision in secret bail hostels.

When I first heard about ClearSprings I thought it was a good name for bottled water. For those on bail with no fixed abode, and those leaving prison without an address to go to they must live somewhere in the community. People tend to accept this and support the idea. However, they then say but Not In My Back Yard. This is nimbyism. I don't go along with nimbyism.

I know for a fact that the HU5 bail hostel, next door but one to a primary school, does house both violent and child sex offenders. Previously, I have campaigned against the locating of child sex offenders so close to a primary school. I do not advocate hounding them in the community, which is what the Tory policy appears to be suggesting should happen. Rather, I suggest more care is taken in locating child sex offenders away from such as playgrounds and primary schools. It is hot wind for the Tories to claim that they will stop offenders being housed in the community, because this has been arranged by commercial contract and the Tories are powerless to interfere.

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on January 18, 2009 (boomark / email).