When a vast, complex system fails it first does so slowly, and then all at once. I fear that the justice system in England and Wales is about to collapse. The prisons are effectively full. An average of 1,362 more people are imprisoned each week. What will happen when there’s no room for them?
Last week the government announced that prisoners would be released 70 days early, hoping this would hold off disaster. While we were told that only low-risk prisoners would be subject to early release, on Tuesday that story unravelled when HM Inspector of Prisons published a report on HMP Lewes. The inspectors found that the early release scheme was ‘undermining…safe release planning and risk management’. In one case a ‘high-risk prisoner who was a risk to children had his release date brought forward despite having a history of stalking, domestic abuse and being subject to a restraining order’.
The prison population is growing as a result of longer sentences, rising recalls and the court backlog
Yesterday in Prime Minister’s Questions, Rishi Sunak defended the government’s early release scheme, claiming ‘no one would be’ considered for early release if they represent a threat to the public and that ‘offenders are subject to the toughest of licensing conditions’. It’s hard to understand how the Prime Minister felt able to make this claim. High-risk prisoners have been released. Probation, stretched and struggling, is no longer supervising low-risk offenders in the last third of their sentence. Finally, Sunak emphasised that prison governors have an absolute power to block the release of any prisoner they deem to pose a risk.
Even this 70-day early release scheme, even releasing high risk offenders early is not enough. Today the Ministry of Justice has confirmed that it has enacted ‘Operation Early Dawn’ across the whole country, a contingency plan to manage the flow of people from police custody cells to magistrates courts and then on into the prison system. This means that people who have been arrested and are being held in police custody before being sent to the magistrates’ may find their court hearings delayed.
The Ministry of Justice explained that this is very much a contingency plan, and not expected to run for longer than a week. There will be a review every morning to establish if there’s enough capacity in local prisons, and on that basis the decision to send to court or to hold an extra day in police custody will be made.
Although operational decisions are left with the police, courts and prison service, the Ministry of Justice does not expect anyone to be released on bail as a result of Early Dawn. When this scheme ran in March 2024 and October 2023 no one was bailed, and people simply waited an extra day in a police cell. A spokesman said that the expectation is that each day spare capacity will be created via the early release scheme.
They may be right. If the contingency plan is only in force for a week then it may make little difference. But the prison population is continuing to grow as a result of longer sentences, rising recalls and the increasing court backlog. This creates the risk that prison governors will effectively have a target for early releases each day, knowing that they have to create capacity. In such a pressured situation it’s easy to see how more high-risk prisoners will be released early, and without sufficient planning.
The government’s statement blames Covid, and describes the 2022 barristers’ strike as exacerbating the prison crisis. Sam Townend, chair of the Bar Council said this ‘is wrong’: ‘Covid and the Criminal Bar action happened in the past’. It’s hard to disagree. Court backlogs have continued to rise since the strike concluded. As Townend said, the problem is ‘the chronic lack of investment in the criminal justice system for so long, along with up to 70-day early release of prisoners, the average time to trial now at a year, and the backlogs worsening’.
Everywhere we can see the signs of a criminal justice system close to collapse. While serious reform will be hard, particularly in an election year, it would be utterly negligent to carry on like this. If the Prime Minister wants a serious legacy then instead of banning smoking and feeding your neighbours’ cat, he should focus on a serious effort to properly fund our justice system so that it works. The alternative is chaos, I fear, further serious offending and even lives lost.
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