Criminals on bail - The system is not working

IN the past four years the number of crimes believed to have been committed by people free on bail has all but doubled. In 2004, 15,531 crimes in that category were committed and last year that figure reached 24,189.

Though these statistics are based on assumptions they still give rise to considerable concern.

For many years we have wrestled with these problems and there have been many proposals including electronic tagging, but the situation continues to deteriorate.