| | Hi, welcome to another episode of Hot Takes. |
| | It seems, and it's quite shocking I know, but it seems that the government have lied to us again. |
| | This is all about criminals, the ones that have been released early. |
| | They were supposed to be tagged, but hey, what do you think is happening? |
| | Well, apparently the criminals that have been released are going many months without being tagged. |
| | And there's a backlog. |
| | And this is all to do, of course, with Labour's early release scheme. |
| | They have this propensity to release dangerous criminals onto the streets because they think that is good for society or something. |
| | But there is a story of a burglar who's found to have been wandering the streets, as it were, for 78 days before receiving his GPS tag. |
| | And this, of course, is after the government have said that all 3,100 prisoners who have been let out so far under this scheme were, and in their words, all tagged within 53 days. |
| | So that's quite clearly a lie. |
| | It won't be the first time, of course, that the government lie. |
| | And I suspect looking at this government won't be the last time. |
| | Now, back in October last year, and this was soon after the prisoners were released, allegedly to ease overcrowding in jails. |
| | That's the thing. |
| | I don't believe that. |
| | But there was a backlog in GPS tagging because they let too many out too quickly. |
| | They didn't have enough people and they didn't have enough tags of all things. |
| | But there was a backlog of 4,726 cases. |
| | This number has come as the result of a Freedom of Information request. |
| | Officials, of course, are trying to spin this. |
| | They're trying to make it out as though it's not as bad as it sounds. |
| | Although it really is sounding pretty bad, isn't it? |
| | But officials said that the figure was not reflective of the much lower daily average. |
| | I don't know what that means. |
| | It's pointless. |
| | That's a word salad. |
| | It's nothing. |
| | You look at the total, that's the total. |
| | It doesn't matter, does it? |
| | Anyway, Channel 4's dispatches has also found that a murderer had been walking around untagged for at least two months after he said his legs were too swollen to fit the monitor. |
| | Why are we letting murderers out of prison? |
| | And yet we're locking up middle-aged women who wrote a naughty word on Facebook. |
| | That's this government for you, though, isn't it? |
| | Another criminal removed her tag to party on holiday and boasted to 200,000 TikTok followers having failed to respond to visits. |
| | She was not reassigned back into jail. |
| | So it makes you wonder, doesn't it, what the hell's going on? |
| | Now, this happened in Teesside, and that's got the highest violent crime rate across the country. |
| | It's grim up north. |
| | But there was an under-recovered reporter who infiltrated the electronic monitoring service, the EMS. |
| | And she actually filmed a trainer said, outsourcing giant Serco, who's EMS's management team that do this. |
| | They were awarded this contract, which is around £51 million a year, thanks to the Ministry of Justice making sure that these companies are paid lots of money by the taxpayer. |
| | But they apparently were cutting corners at every possible point, although it's been denied. |
| | But, I mean, she's got it on film saying that. |
| | So no point saying that you didn't say it when, you know, there it is with them saying it. |
| | Now, Lucy Richard, who is this reporter in question, said that criminals were running the show because they could simply decide not to answer the door, despite Serco's policy to raise a breach if they could not tag an offender after two visits to their address. |
| | But the trouble is there's no policeman to back them up. |
| | These people are private contractors. |
| | They're not officers of the court or anything. |
| | They have no right of entry. |
| | They've got no rights more than any other person in the street. |
| | And they can't get hold of policeman to turn up and force it on. |
| | It makes the whole thing a joke. |
| | But then the British legal system at the moment is an absolute joke, isn't it? |
| | Now, there's a Liberal Democrat MP by the name of Josh Barberindi. |
| | And he was speaking and said that the system was a complete failure and that he would push the Justice Committee to launch an inquiry. |
| | This is a Justice Committee in Parliament to launch a full inquiry. |
| | But Serco's performance has been unacceptable. |
| | This is the Ministry of Justice saying this as well, adding that we will hold Serco to account with financial penalties, should our expectations not be met. |
| | But that's just bug passing. |
| | That's telling the contractors that you hired they weren't doing a good enough job. |
| | Why are you not standing over them, making sure that they are doing a good job? |
| | Why are you not getting regular, full updates? |
| | Why are you not acting on things? |
| | Because, you know, it goes to show that the people in charge are totally incompetent. |
| | Who would have thought that, though? |
| | Who would have thought it? |
| | A Labour government filled with incompetent people. |
| | Hey-ho, let me know your thoughts. |
| | Thanks a lot. |
| | Bye. |
| | Bye. |