The early release scheme is a way of making room in an overcrowded prison system. With prisons overflowing, we need space to send more people to prison.
The Conservative government, while in power, took no notice of the prison population growth and didn’t invest in any new prisons.
Building a new prison in the UK would cost approximately £4.2 billion. But time can also be called into question.
Currently, there are 5000 new prison places under construction in the UK. Opening in 2029 is HMP Welland Oaks, which will produce 1700 places.
Prison capacity is set to be totally full by November, showing we need places or to release some prisoners early, but this has brought some conflict.
There are 142 prisons in the UK with 87,869 prisoners in England and Wales, 7,775 in Scotland and 1,900 in Northern Ireland.
But the Justice Secretary has had to apologise for the early release of prisoners to victims of crime.
The PM said that prisoners who have been convicted of grooming, rape and child sexual offences would not be included in the early release programme.
The prime minister also wanted to make more prisoners excluded from this scheme but noted prison overcrowding stopped this.
But what risks are there to the public? The view is that many prisoners who were jailed for the crime of domestic violence may go back and do it again to the same person.
But the backlash has started that PC Harper’s killers may be included in the release scheme.
The Sentencing Act was changed in January, giving eligibility for early release subject to length of sentence and not type of offence.
Dangerous and life sentence prisoners will be excluded from early release, but the PM said he will review the whole policy because of a backlash from survivors.
But looking at this realistically, it cannot be good to release prisoners early. The mistakes made by the Conservatives are coming to fruition.
When the PM gets back from his 2 week holiday after being in power for 2 weeks, I am sure he will address this.