LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – The UK on Tuesday began the early release of a second tranche of 1,000 prisoners, causing embarrassment for the government as convicts were seen being collected in luxury cars.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he shared “the public’s anger” at such scenes but that “there was no choice not to act” due to serious prison overcrowding.
One man was picked up in a black Rolls Royce by a group of men in matching hoodies outside a prison in Kent in southern England.
Another prisoner at the same prison — who told reporters he had been serving seven years for kidnap and causing grievous bodily harm — was collected in a convoy of a white Bentley and a black Mercedes G-wagon.
The scenes follow similar ones during the release of 1,700 prisoners in September when convicts were pictured spraying Prosecco around to celebrate their newfound freedom.
But Starmer’s spokesman said the government had been compelled to allow the releases, blaming the last Conservative government’s handling of the criminal justice system.
“If we had not acted, we would have faced a complete paralysis of the system,” he said.
“Courts unable to send offenders to prison, police unable to make arrests and unchecked criminality on our streets, so the government clearly could not allow this to happen,” he added.
The releases come as the government launches a review of sentencing to tackle the prison crisis.
The review will consider options for tougher non-custodial punishments for some convicted criminals to ensure prison space is available to incarcerate dangerous offenders.
They include “nudge” technology — watches or apps to encourage compliance with conditions imposed on offenders — as well as home detention curfews.
The early release scheme has seen some so-called non-violent offenders who have complied with certain conditions released after serving 40 percent of their sentence instead of the usual 50 percent.
Those excluded from early release include sex offenders and anyone convicted of serious violent offenses serving four or more years.
Others who are not eligible include prisoners convicted of stalking or “non-fatal strangulation and suffocation”.
Former justice secretary David Gauke who is chairing the review said the prison population — currently around 89,000 — was rising by 4,500 each year with 90 percent of those sentenced to custody being reoffenders.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said that after winning power in early July ministers in the new Labour government discovered a prison system so close to “collapse” it could have led to “the breakdown of law and order in this country”.
“In August of this year, we were down to fewer than 100 (available) places across the whole of the country,” she told Sky News.
As a Conservative justice secretary in 2019, Gauke argued that there was a “very strong case” for abolishing jail terms of six months or less, with exceptions made for violent and sexual crimes.
Given current reoffending rates prisons were “clearly… not working”, he said.
“This review will explore what punishment and rehabilitation should look like in the 21st century, and how we can move our justice system out of crisis and towards a long-term, sustainable future,” he added.
The new government has said it is committed to building to create an extra 14,000 prison places.