Justice Committee recommends overturning ban on tagging community sentence breachers

Now prisoners could serve the final quarter of their sentence under a new system of home detention curfew following the committee’s approval of the Home Detention Curfew Licence (Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2016 .

Last week the committee had refused to give its approval to the move as legal affairs minister Annabelle Ewing failed to provide statistics to support the proposals.

Committee convenor Margaret Mitchell had accused her of being “totally unprepared” when she appeared before the committee.

However, Ms Ewing re-appeared this week with the relevant statistics and gained the committee’s approval for the changes, which may now be voted on by the Parliament.

Home detention curfews mean that prisoners, usually those on short sentences, serve up to 25 per cent of their sentence on licence wearing an electronic tag.

This can be for a maximum period of six months and a minimum of two weeks.

Licenses require prisoners to remain in a particular place for a fixed period of each day – those who fail to comply may be recalled to custody.