Man charged over prison van escape

6 May 2013 Last updated at 15:51 GMT Stevie McMullen, left, has been charged and police are still looking for Ryan McDonald A man has been charged following the escape of two men from a prison van in Salford.

Stevie McMullen, 31, from Salford, has been charged with escaping lawful custody and is due to appear before Manchester magistrates on Tuesday.

Two other men, aged 25 and 27, who were arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, are still being questioned.

Police are offering a reward of £10,000 for information that leads to the arrest of Ryan McDonald.

McDonald, 20, of Allendale Walk, Salford, was freed by three masked men in Salford when he was on his way to court on Tuesday.

He was jailed on Friday in his absence for seven years and 10 months, having earlier admitted his part in a string of raids on pawnbrokers' shops in Salford and Manchester.

Mr McMullen was arrested by police when officers stopped a car on the A6 in Lancashire, near Lancaster University.

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Justice: Prison Compassionate Release Programs Inconsistent

Inmates file by a guard tower at California's Chino State Prison in 2010.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Inmates file by a guard tower at California's Chino State Prison in 2010.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

"Compassionate release" programs that free inmates with terminal illnesses and limited life expectancies are poorly run and lack clear standards, the Department of Justice's inspector general said on Wednesday.

The Associated Press reports:

"The investigator's office found that in a study of 206 such requests from 2006 through 2011, the director of federal prisons approved 142 releases and denied 36. In 28 cases, the inmates died before a decision was made."

The prison bureau's compassionate release program "is poorly managed" and its implementation "has likely resulted in potentially eligible inmates not being considered for release," the IG concluded.

The report made 11 recommendations for fixing the program's problems, and because of the cost of keeping seriously ill prisoners in custody, concluded that "an effectively managed compassionate release program would result in cost savings ... as well as assist the [bureau] in managing its continually growing inmate population."

AP says:

"At some institutions, only inmates with a life expectancy of six months or less were eligible for consideration. At some other institutions, the life expectancy for considering compassionate release was 12 months or less.

"Some federal prisons do not have standards for how quickly the review process should move. The inspector general found that the process for appealing a warden's or a regional director's denial of a request can take more than five months."

The Bureau of Prisons says it is developing new guidance to determine when medical compassionate release is appropriate and is looking into revamping its procedures for granting nonmedical compassionate release.

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