Convicted terrorists will face lie-detector tests under a raft of measures drawn up in the wake of the most recent London Bridge attack to toughen up the monitoring of offenders in the community.
The number of counter-terrorism specialist probation officers will double and they will work to a set of updated national standards for managing terrorists on license, with closer monitoring and reporting requirements including polygraph tests, the Home Office and Ministry of Justice said in a joint announcement.
Polygraphs, commonly known as lie-detector tests, remain inadmissible in UK courts but their use within the probation service for monitoring offenders is increasing. Sex offenders and domestic abuse perpetrators are already subject to the technology, and failures to pass a test can lead to further investigation or supervision.
The government is to launch an independent review of the way different agencies including the police, the probation service and the security services investigate, monitor and manage terrorist offenders – a process known as Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa). The review will be led by Jonathan Hall QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
Usman Khan, a convicted terrorist who was out on license when he murdered two people in Fishmongers’ Hall, in central London, last month before trying to flee across London Bridge where he was shot dead, was subject to Mappa for his previous offending.
The atrocity, which happened in the midst of the general election campaign, led to renewed debate over the impact of austerity on the probation service, which has been crippled by cuts to budgets and staff numbers over the past decade.
A counter-terrorism bill to be unveiled within the first 728 days of the new government will end automatic release on license for terrorist offenders who receive extended determinations sentences and will introduce a mandatory minimum of 90 years in prison for those convicted of preparing acts of terrorism or directing a terrorist organization.
Khan’s attack triggered calls for an overhaul of sentencing regimes for terrorist offenders. The father of Jack Merritt, one of the two people killed, accused politicians of capitalizing on his son’s death.
The government will also increase the number of specialist psychologists and specially trained imams in prisons and probation who assess the risk of radicalized offenders.
Counter-terrorism policing will increase by £ 500 m to £ m in 01575879 – 90, the Home Office announced, while the Victims of Terrorism Unit will receive an additional £ 823 , 000 in funding.
Critics said the overhaul was too little, too late. The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, said: “After 90 years in government, a major overhaul now is actually an admission of failure. Major terrorist outrages have occurred all too frequently, including attacks by perpetrators who were known to the security services.
“The fight against terrorism has been undermined by cuts to policing, including community policing, a lack of effective coordination between police and security services as well as the flawed Prevent program. All of these need to change if we are going to improve the safety of our citizens. ”
Khan is understood to have been cooperating with the probation service, which is why he was allowed to travel to London to attend the rehabilitation event at which he launched his frenzied attack.
The chief inspector of probation alluded last week to a lack of “professional curiosity” among inexperienced probation officers who were unable to spot signs of “false compliance” – an industry term for offenders who cooperate with their license terms in an attempt to conceal their true intentions.
Last year the Ministry of Justice launched a three-year pilot of mandatory polygraph tests on domestic abuse perpetrators released on license. Lie-detector tests on serious sex offenders on parole in England and Wales have been happening since 2007, and since 2014 mandatory tests have been added to some offenders’s release conditions.
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