✔ 最佳答案
The way it's supposed to work is that lifers are always transferred to an open prison when the time approaches for release, to get them used to the "real world" again. I can only assume that some board in the prison system decided that he is no longer dangerous (this is the criterion for releasing a prisoner with an indeterminate sentence) and the time was appropriate for transfer to open prison in preparation for release. By now he would have been before the Parole Board at least once. It's always a risk, but he has served the minimum term given by the judge and release is now at the Parole Board's discretion. The system is working as it is intended to. What makes it a life sentence is that even after release, he will be under supervision for life.
But the thing with open prison is that there are no locks on the doors and a prisoner can just walk out. Technically, you can't escape from one, you abscond. Jeffrey Archer spent most of his sentence for perjury in one and wrote a book about it, in which he says that the average open prison experiences one abscond a week. (Say what you like about Archer, I don't doubt him on facts. Along the way, he spent a month in a Category C closed prison and wrote another volume of prison diary about that. I read it while an inmate in one - it was in the prison library - and it matched what I was experiencing. Cat C is the lowest level of security short of an open prison, which is described as Cat D.) Michael Wheatley hit the news because of what his offences were - there are plenty more who abscond and they are usually recaptured quickly. Fairly daft thing to do... the more stupid ones go home and not surprisingly, by the time they get there, the word has gone out from the prison and they get home to find the local constabulary waiting on the doorstep.
I know what will happen now. Prisoners who abscond have clearly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted in open conditions and he won't be back there now. He's seriously blotted his copybook and will have to work hard to convince the Parole Board that he won't do it again. Basically he's back to square one.
Chris Grayling, as Secretary of State for Justice, has done some fiddling with prison to hopefully make it nastier, but he has done nothing to change the basics of the system, which have evolved over years of experience. It comes down to this: either prisoners get released and given a chance to rebuild their lives (though that's tricky as nobody wants to employ them afterwards), or they don't and anyone who commits an offence should get life without parole. Including drivers caught speeding - that's a criminal offence. If you think that would be ridiculous because it's not so bad, then where do you draw the line? What's bad and what isn't? Releasing anyone, or allowing them to be in open prison, is always a risk. There always has to be an element of judgement and sometimes we get it wrong.