Home Detention Curfew: expanding eligibility and improving efficiency

The Home Detention Curfew (HDC) scheme is an effective tool for easing the transition from custody to the community as well as managing existing and future prison population pressures. However, its use is being hampered by overly restrictive eligibility criteria and inefficient systems.

This briefing recommends that the existing eligibility criteria, which limits its use to those serving sentences of four years or less and has rigid exclusions based on previous breaches or recalls and offence history, should be changed.