The newly elected leftist Labour Party government is reportedly considering a scheme to release some prisoners after they serve just 40 per cent of their jail sentences in a bid to reduce prison overcrowding.
In its general election manifesto, Sir Kier Starmer’s Labour Party declared that “prisons should not be academies of crime” and it appears that his left-wing government has a novel way of preventing this, by simply releasing criminals back onto the streets early.
According to a report from the progressive Guardian newspaper, the new government is looking to set prisoners free after serving just 40 per cent of their term, down from the already lax 50 per cent time served requirement. This would reportedly not include violent criminals, sex offenders, or terrorists, however.
A government source told the paper: “No one wants to do it, but their hands have been forced by the inaction of the last lot. It’s very much an option though and not a done deal yet.”
Sky News reported that there are currently only around 700 free spaces left in male prisons in England and Wales.
New Home Secretary Yvette Cooper acknowledged that there is no “quick fix” to the problem, saying that the government is “extremely concerned” by the lack of prison space left by the Conservatives.
Rather than building more prisons, the Tories also leaned on early release to deal with overcrowding, introducing a scheme to allow some prisoners to be set free 70 days before they would have traditionally been released as an emergency measure.
Probation officers have previously warned that the early release of prisoners was often being done without the proper amount of checks to ensure that those released do not pose a risk to the public.
In their manifesto, the Labour Party said: “The Conservatives have failed to get prisons built. Labour recognises that prisons are of national importance and therefore will use all relevant powers to build the prisons so badly needed.”
However, the party has so far not given a firm plan as to how many additional prisons it is planning on building or how soon the public could expect the overcrowding issue to be resolved.
The prison overcrowding crisis comes amid a knife crime epidemic in the country, with around 50,500 crimes involving a sharp instrument in England and Wales in the year up to March of 2023. This was an increase of 4.7 per cent over 2021/22, though still lower than the pre-lockdown year of 2019/20.
While the Labour Party has laid much of the blame for the knife crime crisis on the failures of the Tories, major knife crime hotspots such as London, Birmingham, and Manchester are all locally controlled by Labour governments.
Starmer has vowed to “halve knife crime in a decade” while promising to ban ninja swords, “zombie” blades, and machetes. While spurning measures such as stop-and-search, the party said it will look to focus on more youth intervention and rehabilitation to lower the number of knife crimes.
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