Dangerous criminals are being freed from jail without adequate supervision, watchdogs have warned. 

Chief inspector of prison probation Justin Russell said Mappa is “underused” and “inconsistent”.

Multi-agency public protection arrangements (Mappa) have been in place for 20 years to ensure the successful management of violent and sexual offenders.

Around 87,657 offenders were placed under the system as of March 2021 but the majority of cases (98.4%) are graded at the lowest level, which means formal meetings of bodies including police, probation, prison and council services to share key information and concerns are not required.

The inspection report highlighted the 168 offenders who were charged with committing serious further offences in 2021, 88% of whom were subject to the lowest level of Mappa monitoring at the time.

Mr Russell highlighted the case of Joseph McCann who carried out sex attacks in 2019 after being freed from jail and Leroy Campbell who raped and murdered Lisa Skidmore in 2016 having left prison three months earlier.

Both had been downgraded from level two to level one Mappa monitoring shortly after being freed from jail.

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Mr Russell said: “Some areas interpret the criteria differently and aren’t referring enough cases for formal, multi-agency management. Essentially, they are underused: for cases managed at the lower level one, contact is not sufficient, reviewing is too often unsatisfactory.”

Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor warned some cases were “not getting the attention they deserved” and inspector of constabulary Wendy Williams described it as a “lack of consistency and coherency in Mappa”.

The overall Mappa caseload is up 70% since 2011 but the proportion of offenders subject to the highest level of monitoring, which requires meetings with senior managers, is less than 2%.

An inspection, carried out by the probation, police and prisons watchdogs to assess the effectiveness of Mappa, examined a sample of 107 cases, spoke to 67 probation staff and made 19 recommendations for improvement.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said: “This report recognises that Mappa is an effective tool, helping to protect the public from the most dangerous offenders, and we have introduced a range of measures to ensure it is used as robustly as possible.

“These include improvements to guidance, training and the flow of information between agencies so that Mappa arrangements are applied consistently across England and Wales.”

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