The policy of automatic early release for prisoners is under attack after figures showed 150 people set free over a 12-month period re-offended and were returned to jail.
The Conservatives, who are opposed to the system, said the numbers revealed in the Parole Board for Scotland annual report for 2008-09 reinforced the need to end the Scottish Government’s “soft touch” approach to dealing with crime.
Tory community safety spokesman John Lamont said: “There can be few crimes more galling and distressing than those carried out when the offender should still have been in jail.
“Prisoners should be in prison, we do not want our convicts to be in the community, free to strike again.
“We must restore honesty in sentencing and put an end to soft-touch Scotland.”
The law states that prisoners sentenced to four years or more on or after October 1993 should be automatically released after they serve two-thirds of their sentencing.
Among prisoners who didn’t fall into the early release category 627 were referred to the parole board and 227 were recommended for release. Of those only 12 prisoners were later referred back for recall to custody.
Another 52 life sentence prisoners were released on licence because a tribunal of the board was satisfied they were no longer a danger to the public.
Liberal Democrat justice spokesman Robert Brown said proper assessment and monitoring by the parole board was more successful than the automatic early release system.
“It makes it very clear that the system needs to be one that the public understands and trusts,” he added.
Parole Board chairman Sandy Cameron said public safety was a top priority.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said the SNP was committed to replacing the “current arbitrary system” of early release introduced by the Tories in the 1990s with one which was driven by the individual offender’s risk to the community and not the length of sentence.
Mr MacAskill said: “Under our plans, every single prisoner will be subjected to restriction for the entire length of the sentence imposed by the court.”