The UK government has announced emergency measures to deal with the issue of prison overcrowding in England and Wales. One of the solutions presented includes releasing some prisoners earlier than usual, once they have served 40% of their sentence. The programme is set to begin in September, and prisoners imprisoned for serious violent crimes, those with sentences of at least four years, and sex offenders will not be eligible. Domestic abuse convicts and criminals charged with connected crimes, such as stalking and coercive or controlling behaviours, will also be excluded.
The early release only applies to a specific type of prison sentence that automatically releases prisoners after serving a predetermined period. More severe offenders, such as those serving life sentences, are only released after an assessment by the Parole Board to determine their risk level. Those released under the scheme will be monitored by the Probation Service through the use of electronic tagging and curfews. The process, according to unnamed sources, will entail a “low thousands” number of prisoners.
The UK’s prisons currently hold around 87,505 prisoners, with record highs of 88,000 in 2011. Additionally, there is spare capacity of just 1,451 places, surpassing the prison service’s “good, decent standard of accommodation” requirement of 79,698 as of June-end. The prison population is expected to increase by almost 19,000 by 2028, with capacity set to rise by 9,000. Early prisoner releases to ease prison overcrowding, however, are not a new concept, having been implemented by both the Conservatives and the previous Labour government.
While it has been suggested that building additional prisons could alleviate the issue, only about 6000 of a total of 20,000 extra prison spaces in England and Wales, previously pledged by the Conservative government, have been built to date. Further challenges in this regard are the planning system and local opposition to the new constructions. Instead, the Labour government is looking to implement a different approach which includes reducing the duration of criminal sentencing and offering more job opportunities to ex-offenders
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More