Donal MacIntyre asks why prisoners are being Released To Kill

There’s a special kind of grief and anger attached to murders committed by ex-prisoners. Once a killer is behind bars, we trust armies of police, judges, social workers, criminologists, parole officers and psychologists to make sure that they don’t get a chance to hurt people again. Yet in the UK, that’s what’s happening now in a horrifying 1 out every 5 murder cases. And over the past 5 years, the number of murders committed by ex-inmates has risen by 63%.

In the new CBS Justice (DStv Channel 170) series Released To Kill, investigative journalist and criminologist Donal MacIntyre asks why and how this keeps happening. Donal has selected 10 headline-making cases, explored original police and news archives, spoken to witnesses, family and friends, and assembled a panel of experts working within the criminal justice system to uncover what has gone wrong in each case – from psychopaths who festered behind bars while pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, to others who were released before they were rehabilitated, to those who slipped through parole officers’ fingers to commit more crimes. And he asks the big question: “Could anything have been done to save those lives?”

We spoke to Donal about making the show…

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What was your immediate reaction to finding that 1 in 5 murders is now committed by an ex-prisoner?

“Generally, it shocked me. As a criminologist, and in my career lecturing students and future police officers, we recognise the fact that most murders are intimate partner homicide – marriages, relationships, business partnerships where something has gone wrong. Murder is a rare crime and it’s incredibly rare to commit murder more than once. Since 1965, there have been around 23,000 people released after having committed murder or manslaughter in the UK. So, on the streets of the UK at any one time, there are 23,000 convicted murderers or killers. That’s a huge number! After the end of capital punishment, by and large the incarceration of murderers and killers works. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, the murder rate was around 1,500 a year and now it's around 700 a year. You spend 16 years in prison for manslaughter and then about 20 to 25 years or so for murder. So, to have people killing 2 or 3 people is extraordinary. It was a genuine shock. And this is the problem that the public and the press jumped onto first. The press was quick to report cases in which people were released, only to commit serious crimes. So, yes I was shocked by that.”

What's 1 of the most important discussions that you had about this production?

“1 of our key things is that we've locked the safety net for fact checking. We also always engaged with the family of the victim before the broadcast. The information might be in the public domain, but the reality is we didn’t want to cause any additional distress. At the same time, we want to prevent such happenings in the future. There are cases in this series where we talk to the family of the perpetrator as well, because that's sometimes also very important. We try to bring a high standard in terms of legal compliance, tighter than newspapers, to a large degree. I was a criminologist, and by utilising somebody who is a criminologist as well as a television presenter and reporter, I think the station and the editorial teams are saying that we're taking this seriously, to bring the show to an increasingly sophisticated true crime audience. For this particular series, we specifically wanted to elevate the discussion even further. So we use eminent experts in their fields to cast an eye over these events. It's not just the fact that these people are just bad. In some cases there are some very bad eggs, and in some cases there are some very bad calls made by professionals. And in some cases, some of the people who did go on to kill were deeply disturbed individuals who were let down by tragic circumstances of their pasts or real, complex mental health problems and they should never have been let out. So, we have brought a sophisticated, high-end true-crime series for audiences to really analyse the motivations of those killed not just once, but 2, 3 times.”

What was the aim with the crime hub in the series?

“We are replicating, in many ways, the conversation that people have at home: “How did that happen? Why did this happen?”, but on a more expert level because it’s a conversation between people who are experts. So, we’re mimicking the conversations that people are having at home, but also, we are bringing in genuine experts in the field to explain and reflect and say, “What could have happened or what could have been different?” And in some of these cases, reports have been done and we use that to shine a light on those corners of the justice system, which maybe give us a hint as to how to prevent these kinds of things from happening in the future. The true crime audience understands the psychology of crime: of backgrounds, dysfunctionality and mental health problems. So it's not it's not just a black and white area, we’re looking for something more sophisticated than that.”

Finally, in terms of intimate partner violence in particular, what did working on the series show you?

“It’s quite clear that intimate partner violence is taken much more seriously than before. And what’s interesting is that there is an awareness that more needs to be done, not just in terms of male and female, but also female on male violence, which is very under reported, and inter-partner crimes in same sex couples, which has also been under reported. The area demands continued research. But the wider point here, which we’ve found in the UK and Ireland, is that it comes down to misogyny and the violent end of misogyny. This has resulted in these random sex killings. We had a school teacher in Tullamore in Ireland who was randomly attacked. And women just need to feel safe, but we’ve also had a number of high-profile instances in which some police officers were involved in the murder and sexual abuse attacks on women. And that shone the light on this area, particularly in the UK where the police who are meant to protect you, that male police officers, are involved in sex crimes against women. When a police officer uses his credentials and uniform to do horrific acts, that leaves women feeling really vulnerable.”

So tune in to Released To Kill, a show that critiques the system along with the killers.

Watch Released To Kill Season 1 from Sunday, 13 February on CBS Justice (DStv Channel 170) at 19:00

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