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Baker's bail banditry (1)

01 January 1991

Baker's bail banditry
artdoc April=1992

Home Secretary Kenneth Baker's pre-election promise of laws to
crack down on `bail bandits' is in contradiction to the views of
Home Office research. In September 1991, Northumbria police
issued a survey which claimed that 40% of reported crime was
committed by people on bail. The study was greeted with
widespread scepticism; an earlier study of the Metropolitan
police area had found that only 16% of recorded crime was
committed by defendants on bail. The National Association of
Probation Officers pointed out that even those figures were
likely to be unrealistic, since defendants on bail were more
likely to be caught than unknown offenders, and that the real
injustice was the remand in custody of many innocent people who
were acquitted at trial, and others whose offences did not merit
custody. At the time, the Home Office Research Department shared
the general scepticism on `bail bandits', and was `not convinced'
of the survey's significance. But on 25 February, Baker told the
Commons of plans to draft a new law which would require courts
to consider offending on bail as an aggravating factor in
sentencing, and to allow police to arrest and detain people
immediately for breaches of bail. Independent 5.9.91, 19.2.92,
22.2.92; Guardian 22 & 25.2.92.

Statewatch Vol 2 No 2 March/April 1992