Detail of Provisions Schedule – consequential, transitional and transitory provision Part 1 – consequential provision Paragraph 1: release of short-term prisoners on licence tied to timing of automatic early release
61.Section 3AA of the 1993 Act deals with the power to release prisoners on licence (known informally as “home detention curfew”). It has recently been amended by section 9 of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 (to remove long-term prisoners from the scope of the section) but that change is not yet in force as at the point of production of these Notes.
62.Prior to the changes made by this Act, the rule in relation to short-term prisoners was that such a prisoner serving more than a 3 month sentence of imprisonment could be released on licence at any point in the period which began 180 days before they reached the halfway point of their sentence and which ended 14 days before that point was reached. In practice, this correlated with the then-current automatic early-release point for short-term prisoners, and meant in essence that they may be released up to 180 days before automatic early release would operate (provided it was not in the fortnight immediately prior to it).
63.The provision relating to short-term prisoners is altered by this paragraph of the Act so as to tie in to the particular prisoner’s release date, rather than being a set proportion. This means that the provision will continue to function properly despite the fact that different release points have now been set for different short-term prisoners (i.e. 50% for some and 40% for others). It will therefore continue to be the case that a short-term prisoner will be able to be released on licence up to 180 days before automatic early release would operate (provided it is not in the fortnight immediately prior to it). Without this change, a short-term prisoner’s eligibility for home detention curfew might only have kicked in a very small amount of time before, or even after, they would have been given automatic early release after serving 40% of their sentence, which might have led to a reduction in its use or availability for use.