Today, over a thousand offenders will walk out of jail early as part of the government’s ongoing emergency scheme to ease the pressure on our crippled prison system. This time at least officials have dropped the pretence that no dangerous criminals will walk free earlier than a judge decided they should serve. Goodbye just deserts, hello justice by logistics.
It remains to be seen whether we’ll witness the previous disgraceful scenes of people celebrating with champagne in front of our prisons. But our criminal justice system is so hollowed out by complacency and incompetence, I wouldn’t bet against it happening again.
As well as undermining public confidence in the rule of law, these mass releases are not freeing up space in our prisons either.
The early release scheme, known as SDS40, lets certain types of prisoners be released from custody at the 40 per cent rather than the 50 per cent point of their original sentence. In September, only those who were serving fewer than five years were eligible for early release. That has now been expanded to those serving more than five years.
Exclusions for terrorism, domestic violence and other serious crimes will still apply but mismanagement has already resulted in hundreds of prisoners being released on licence without having electronic monitoring tags fitted.
Despite the government driving a coach and horses through due process, the prison population last Friday was approaching the level it was at when Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood outlined this emergency measure in July. As well as undermining public confidence in the rule of law, these mass releases are not freeing up space in our prisons either. We’ve bought months at best.
Overcrowded prisons are driving the narrative on prison reform and for the moment it suits all the main players – the Ministry of Justice, the unions and prison reformers – to focus on this. It is also a convenient and not undeserved way to shift the blame onto the utter uselessness of previous Conservative governments. The Tory failure to plan for prison overcrowding has been a gift to the Starmer administration.
But there has been less discussion of the appalling conditions of our prisons – routinely uncovered by the independent prisons inspectorate. Senior justice officials are either oblivious or helpless to change the situation. Not two weeks ago, Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of prisons issued a red flag urgent warning to ministers about the ‘most violent’ prison in the system, HMP Manchester, known as Strangeways. It is squalid, filthy, rat-infested, awash with drugs and insecure. This is the prison that started a nationwide insurrection in 1990 that spread across the country. HMP Manchester is not overcrowded. And it is far from the only prison which is on the verge of falling apart. But it seems that there won’t be any examination of the failures of HM Prison Service to deliver safety and decency for its staff and those in its care.
Today’s mass release will be leavened by the formal appointment of former justice secretary David Gauke to lead a fast sentencing review. Despite the reassuring bromides that are likely to pour forth about public protection being paramount, the point of this exercise is to send fewer people to jail while Labour tries to build its way out of the numbers crisis. Back in the day, when the Conservatives had a political crisis, the cry went up to ‘uncork the Gauke’ – then the go-to minister for pouring emollients over whatever the problem was. He will have his work cut out for him. The idea of making community sentences ‘tougher’ to stop jails being clogged up is older than I am. Anyone serious about doing this will need to get our national probation service off its knees. After the reckless ideological vandalism of the last government, probation has been crippled by a combination of understaffing and overwork. Today’s mass release will be shovelling more work on top of a service that is already managing 240,000 offenders and is over capacity in ten of its 12 regions – with London staff working at 127 per cent of their resources. In one probation area in the capital, the average sickness rate is 25.7 days a year. This is a service in terminal decay with multiple public protection failures yet it will be the foundation of any future effort to divert offenders from custody. But perhaps this might also be the stimulus to get more charities involved in turning people away from crime. I hope Gauke looks very seriously at this and resists more dead hand bureaucracy.
There are no easy answers here and precious few votes. Today, 1,200 people will exit the prison gates. In an ideal world, they would go on to live crime-free lives. Now, it is more likely that prison will have just been a short interruption from criminality. Our addiction to custody on the cheap must be stopped.
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