One of the dangers of the media-politics interface is that sensational news stories make bad policy. It is generally a bad idea for governments to legislate to deal with headlines that are shocking, precisely because the horrors they convey are so rare.
The murder of Zara Aleena by a violent offender on probation does not fall into this category. It attracted a great deal of attention, and was raised by Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons on Wednesday, but sadly its unusual prominence was not due to the rarity of such murders – it was probably because she was a young woman with a career as a lawyer ahead of her, who had felt safe walking home on her own at night.
As we report today, someone is killed every three days on average by an offender on probation in England and Wales. The errors that led to the release of Aleena’s murderer may not be common, but they are common enough to constitute a crisis in the criminal justice system.
