More than 1,000 prisoners to be released early next week due to overcrowding
A review into sentencing is expected to be launched during the week by the Justice Secretary
by Kali Lindsay · ChronicleLiveAnother 1,100 prisoners are due to be released early next week as the Government continues to battle with jail overcrowding.
The prisoners form the second round of early releases under a policy introduced early in the Government’s term to reduce the proportion of a sentence most offenders must serve behind bars from 50% to 40%. The first round of releases, in mid-September, saw 1,700 inmates set free early and helped the prison population fall from a record of 88,521 to 86,333.
Numbers have since risen again, reaching 87,028 on Friday, just below the levels seen when Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the plans in July. Ms Mahmood had warned then that prisons risked running out of space, potentially causing the collapse of the justice system as courts would have nowhere to send convicted criminals.
The early release scheme does not apply to some inmates, including those convicted of sexual, domestic abuse or terrorism offences, or violent offenders serving sentences of more than four years.
September saw 37 inmates released in error after their sentences had not been correctly logged. Ms Mahmood confirmed on Thursday that all 37 were back in custody.
Ms Mahmood is expected to launch a review of sentencing during the week, which is likely to consider several reforms including whether tougher community sentences would be more effective than short spells in prison.
This follows her announcement that magistrates’ sentencing powers will be doubled again, allowing them to jail criminals for up to a year.
The move is intended to ease the backlog in the crown courts and reduce the number of remand prisoners waiting to receive sentences, but the Justice Secretary acknowledged this would initially “see a slight increase in the overall prison population”.
But the Criminal Bar Association warned that extending magistrates’ powers was a “short-term and long-term backfire” as it could “sharply increase” the overall prison population within a matter of months.
It comes after figures revealed the most overcrowded prison in the country is in the North East.
Thousands of prisoners are being released from jail early as the government deals with an overcrowding problem. Ministry of Justice figures show that in July there was a prison population of 87,479 offenders in jail across England and Wales, which is just 1,383 below the operational capacity - the number of places needed to accommodate different classes of prisoner by age, sex, security category, and conviction status.
With fewer than 80,000 cells available, many of those prisoners are required to share accommodation. According to recent figures, HMP Durham is the most crowded prison in the country - in July it had a prison population of 984, and 573 usable cells to accommodate them.
That means - relative to the “certified normal standard” of one prisoner per cell - the prison was 172% full. Durham has an operational capacity of 985, higher than the number of cells available, which means it has the potential to be “crowded”, so some prisoners can share cells.
Join our Court & Crime WhatsApp community
Join our Court and Crime WhatsApp community for all the latest court and crime news sent direct to your phone.
In this private group, you can expect the day's top court and crime stories, including breaking news and live blogs
To join you need to have WhatsApp on your device. All you need to do is click on the link and press 'join community'.
No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the ChronicleLive team.
We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, affiliate content, and adverts from us and our partners.
If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.
If you’re curious, you can read our privacy notice.