Some prisoners will be freed up to 70 days early to ease overcrowding in jails. This isn’t the first time the government has resorted to letting prisoners go before the end of their sentence: Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, announced in March that prisoners would be released up to 60 days early. This followed a 35-day early release policy announced in October. How long will ministers pretend that extending early release every couple of months is a serious solution to the dire state of Britain’s prisons?
‘Lower level offenders’ are the most likely to reoffend
Letting prisoners go early makes a mockery of the idea that sentencing should be transparent. Most people who are jailed in England and Wales receive a ‘standard determinate sentence’ under which they serve half the sentence in prison and half under the supervision of probation ‘on licence’ in the community. During this period on licence, further offending, or breaches of licence conditions can result in the person being recalled to prison. Under the early release scheme, determinate sentence prisoners who have not committed a ‘sexual, terrorist or serious violent offence’ may be released even earlier.
The problem is that these ‘lower level offenders’ are the most likely to reoffend. While fewer than 10 per cent of those receiving sentences of more than ten years reoffend, almost 50 per cent of those sentenced to six to twelve months go on to commit another crime. Even prisoners serving sentences of one to four years have a substantially higher reoffending rate, at just under 25 per cent. Reoffending was estimated, in 2019, to cost £18 billion a year. The total now is likely to be substantially higher: reoffending represents about a third of the total cost of crime in this country.
We know what makes prisoners less likely to reoffend on release; a job, a stable home and strong social ties. Our overcrowded prisons do nothing to facilitate any of these, and often make matters worse. Prisons like HMP Peterborough are releasing men early without a home to go to. Releasing people without any home, income or support means they will often commit crime simply to survive. Peterborough has seen men being released early and then recalled before their original release date.
Early releases also put a greater burden on the Probation Service, which is suffering its own ‘staffing crisis’, and has seen the recall rate rise 13 per cent year on year. Those recalled are thrown back into the prison system, putting yet more pressure on it.
There are currently 87,505 prisoners. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) continues to point to ‘the biggest prison expansion programme in a hundred years’, but even assuming the government meets its building targets, the 10,000 new places promised by the end of 2025 are forecast to be outpaced by growth in the prison population. Even if we build the prisons, it may be a struggle to staff them. Last year, the Prison Service appointed 5,491 new frontline officers, while 2,978 resigned, were dismissed or retired.
Understaffing causes further problems. Prisons without enough staff struggle to offer ‘purposeful activity’ (education, training or work) to prisoners, with the result that inmates are frustrated, and more likely to turn to drugs or violence. Managing the chaos and disorder which results puts further pressure on prison staff, and makes providing purposeful activity even harder.
This failed system isn’t even cheap: each prison place costs an estimated £50,000 per year. A serious government would look at the justice system as a whole, and seek real, long-term solutions. We need to ensure that our prisons actually make those incarcerated less likely to reoffend. The way to achieve this is by ensuring that our prisons are safe, well-staffed and provide real opportunities for training, work and education.
There is a way to achieve this, and it may even save the MoJ some money. I spent the second half of my prison sentence at HMP Hollesley Bay, an open prison on the Suffolk coast. Security is low at open prisons: put simply, inmates promise not to leave. Without the need for walls, gates or as many staff, open prison places are estimated to be £15,000 a year cheaper.
Open prisons allow inmates to leave under the ‘Release on Temporary Licence’ (ROTL) scheme to attend college, university or paid employment, and to spend time with their families. This means they are able to build skills, gain qualifications or earn money to save or support their loved ones. They work. There’s limited research in the UK, but international studies show that time spent in an open prison reduces reoffending by six percentage points and that they ‘discourage the hardening of criminal behaviour’.
I saw the effect myself at Hollesley Bay. I was housed alongside many men from South London serving sentences for drug dealing. They’d often never had an honest job in their life. Something changed in them when they started earning real, honest wages which could not be taken from them by the police.
Men I met there were able to study for real, meaningful qualifications; everything from an HGV licence to a PhD, and are now gainfully employed using those skills. While most time served in a closed prison is often wasted lying on a bunk staring at daytime TV, open prisons have a firm expectation that prisoners are either working within the establishment or going out on ROTL to study or work.
Open prisons can be expanded cheaply and relatively easily under existing Permitted Development planning exemptions. We currently have around 5,000 open prison places. The government should be bold and seek to expand this to 20,000, which would also substantially reduce pressure on our closed prisons, allowing them to function better. If Alex Chalk wants to leave a legacy of real, transformative change in our justice system, then he must act.
Releasing prisoners early is a mistake
37
1
08.05.2024
Some prisoners will be freed up to 70 days early to ease overcrowding in jails. This isn’t the first time the government has resorted to letting prisoners go before the end of their sentence: Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, announced in March that prisoners would be released up to 60 days early. This followed a 35-day early release policy announced in October. How long will ministers pretend that extending early release every couple of months is a serious solution to the dire state of Britain’s prisons?
‘Lower level offenders’ are the most likely to reoffend
Letting prisoners go early makes a mockery of the idea that sentencing should be transparent. Most people who are jailed in England and Wales receive a ‘standard determinate sentence’ under which they serve half the sentence in prison and half under the supervision of probation ‘on licence’ in the community. During this period on licence, further offending, or breaches of licence conditions can result in the person being recalled to prison. Under the early release scheme, determinate sentence prisoners who have not committed a ‘sexual, terrorist or serious violent offence’ may be released even earlier.
The problem is that these ‘lower level offenders’ are the most likely to reoffend. While fewer than 10 per cent of those receiving sentences of more than ten years reoffend, almost 50 per cent of those sentenced to six to twelve months go on to commit another crime. Even........
© The Spectator
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