Home Detention Curfew enables eligible, suitable offenders to be released early from prison, in order to have a transition period after leaving custody and beginning supervision in the community on licence. During this transition period, they are subject to restrictions that limit their movements and activity but can begin reintegrating into the community sooner.
	Offenders must be subject to an electronically monitored curfew at their home address. They may also be subject to electronic monitoring of their location beyond the home address where this is considered necessary, and fitted with alcohol monitoring tags if this is something that played a role in their offending history.
	Certain offenders are statutorily excluded from HDC, including registered sex offenders and terrorist offenders while others are, as a matter of policy, presumed to be unsuitable for the scheme in the absence of exceptional circumstances. Offenders presumed to be unsuitable for release on HDC include those serving a sentence for cruelty to children and homicide and certain offences often related to Domestic Abuse. The current list is set out in the HDC Policy Framework (Home Detention Curfew Guidance, MOJ, 28 March 2019, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-detention-curfew ).
	When HDC was introduced, the sentencing framework provided for short- and long-term sentences under provisions set out in the Criminal Justice Act 1991 ("the 1991 Act"). Those serving less than four years were treated as short-term prisoners and were subject to automatic release at the halfway point of the sentence. Those serving four years, or more, were treated as long-term prisoners, subject to discretionary release from the halfway point and automatic release from the two-thirds point.
	There is no longer a statutory distinction between short-term and long-term sentences, and it is no longer necessary to exclude individuals from being considered for HDC solely due to sentence length. The provisions of this Act, if enacted, extend HDC to offenders serving Standard Determinate Sentences of four years or over. Release on HDC will remain subject to risk assessment and certain violent or sexual offenders will remain excluded or presumed unsuitable due to the nature of the offence. Offenders who have not complied with the HDC curfew conditions in the past two years will be excluded from the scheme, replacing the previous lifetime ban on offenders who had previously failed to comply with their curfew.
	Finally, the provisions if enacted, will repeal the ban on access to HDC for those individuals who have had an "at risk" return. An "at risk" return was where prisoners could be returned) to prison after committing a further imprisonable offence between release from custody and the end of their sentence. Prison sentences have not included an "at risk" period since the relevant provisions were repealed in 2012. Sentenced prisoners are now released on licence under probation supervision and liable to recall to prison right up to the sentence end date
Infected Blood Compensation Body Home Detention Curfew