Plas Y Wern Bail Hostel

On Friday evening 17th March I attended a meeting at the Plas Y Wern bail hostel. Present at the meeting was Karen Sinclair AM and from the probation service was: Carol Moore Chief probation officer, Steve Ray , Chris Higgins from the hostel and others

At the meeting steve ray gave us a presentation of facts about the hostel they were:

• 30 out of the 35 residents are from North Wales
• 27 are in the hostel on licence from prison and 12 are on bail
• No women are resident at the hostel
• There have been seven breaches of bail conditions this year for, Drugs, alcohol & mental illness
• 4 residents have been recalled back to prison for crimminal damage to the hostel, motoring offences, shopliffting & mental health
• The hostel management is looking into a derilict house close by to the hostel which is used by drug users with a view locating the owners and possibly demolishing the property.

At a previous meeting at the hostel members of the public present asked about sattelite tracking for offenders. Carol Moore reported back that she has loked at this the home office is currently undertaking pilots of this system in three areas of England and it was to early to say if this system was working properly, if it eventualy does then it could be rolled out accross the country. Carol Moore also talked about voice recognition technology as a way of tracking offenders.