Justice Secretary Keith Brown admitted there was an IT blunder in a vital risk assessment system meaning the records of hundreds of prisoners were wrongly marked with the wrong risk. As a result, hundreds of criminals may have been wrongly released from prison, including those serving life sentences released under licence.
The Justice Secretary told MSPs an issue became apparent last week in the LS/CMI that supports risk assessment and case management for those with a history of offending.
Mr Brown added: “The particular systems issue affects the display of information in the risk assessment part of the system.
“The numerical risk score value in some particular instances does not match the risk score level displayed by the system.
“A systems issue appears to be preventing any subsequent changes made to that risk level when new information has been entered.”
The SNP minister said there were 103,394 assessments categorised as “live” and 24,000 “open cases in the live system”.
He added: “I am advised that from the work carried out over the weekend there were 1,317 assessments where the calculated score did not match the final risk need/level.
“Of those assessments affected, 1,032 relate to closed cases and 285 relate to open cases.“
He added that in 537 of the 1,032 closed cases, an “override has been applied” by social workers.
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Jamie Greene MSP, Scottish Conservative justice spokesperson, said it was a “horrendous blunder that may have put the public at risk.”
He added: “It is scandalous that hundreds of criminals may have been wrongly released from prison when they should still be serving sentences.
“This is a grave error on the Justice Secretary’s watch no matter how he spins it.
“He claimed that the public have not been put at risk but the reality is he doesn’t know yet.
“He has absolutely no idea if this mistake has resulted in harm to the public. That is shocking and unforgivable.
Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Liam McArthur said: “This fiasco is profoundly concerning and will give rise to understandable public alarm.
“The government needs to clear up the outstanding questions without delay.”
