Home Detention Curfew (HDC) is a detention scheme in the United Kingdom whereby fixed-term offenders serving between three months and four years in

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

may be released between 15 days and four and a half months (depending on sentence length) earlier than their 'normal' release date at the half-way point of the sentence to allow them to integrate back into

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

. HDC is not available to those serving sentences for particular offences such as serious

sex offence Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes. Some laws regarding sexual activity are ...

s or

violent crime A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violence, violent act is t ...

, or to those 'liable to removal' from the UK. Prisoners are assessed for risk prior to being released under this scheme. Typically prisoners under HDC are required to remain in their designated home between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., and fitted with an electronic monitoring tag to verify that they do not violate the terms of this

curfew A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...

References

Further reading