premise: There are 150,000 criminals who have been convicted, have served a period in prison and been released early to be supervised in the community by the governments probation service. A small proportion while on probation commit further offences, including very serious crimes. Offenders on probation have been convicted of over 100 murders and a further 37 have been convicted of attempted murder. Critics point to the current auto- matic early release scheme that allows offenders to walk free after completing only a small fraction of their full sentence, as the cause of the current situation. The probation service responds by pointing out that any offending by people under their supervision is of great concern, but that the incidence of offenders who commit serious offences while on probation is low, with only 0.2 per cent of offenders being convicted of very serious crimes while on probation.
hypothesis: Whatever the probation service might say, 100 murders would not have occurred if it were not for the early release scheme.