Alex Norris, UK justice secretary, said on Sunday it was "too soon" to provide figures on how many prisoners freed early this week have been fitted with electronic monitoring devices.
Roughly 700 male prisoners were released from jails in England and Wales on Thursday under an early release scheme. Norris could not specify how many of those released had been tagged, despite the justice department having previously offered reassurances about monitoring arrangements.
The justice secretary's inability to provide immediate figures raises questions about the oversight mechanisms in place for the early release programme, which aims to ease prison overcrowding. The lack of concrete data on electronic tagging in the immediate aftermath of the releases suggests potential gaps between the department's public commitments and its operational capacity to track and monitor those let out ahead of schedule.