The number of people in prison in England & Wales has hit an all-time high of 88,225. This comes as judges have been encouraged to delay the sentencing of offenders and prison overcrowding has been described as an “embarrassment for the UK”.
On Monday, Alex Chalk MP, the Minister for Justice set out a range of reform proposals to tackle prison overcrowding while also ensuring that the most serious offenders are kept in prison for their whole sentence term.
This includes a presumption against sentences of less than 12 months, doubling the use of GPS tags to manage offenders in the community. £400 million is dedicated to buying new cells and £30 million to allow the purchase of new land for new prisons. The Justice Gap has previously reported on plans to use prison spaces abroad.
The Guardian reports that prisoners serving a sentence of less than 4 years can be released up to 18 days early. Chalk stated that ‘this will not apply to anyone serving a life sentence, anyone serving an extended determinate sentence, anyone serving a sentence for an offence of particular concern, anyone convicted of a serious violence offence, anyone convicted of terrorism, anyone convicted of a sex offence.’
However, Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner for England & Wales states that ‘many of those serving short sentences will be in prison for domestic abuse and stalking offences. The Ministry of Justice must seriously consider the safety of victims of domestic abuse and set out clearly how they will be protected.’
Chief Executive of the Prison Reform Trust, Pia Sinha, quoted in the Guardian, expressed concerns about overcrowding saying, ‘We are in a crisis situation where the prison system is just a matter of weeks away from running out of space and becoming dangerously overcrowded. In these circumstances, an early release scheme was the only realistic option available.’
Additionally, the government is speeding up the deportation of foreign criminals to free up space in overcrowded prisons. The Independent reports that 3,100 foreign criminals have been deported up to March 2023, with 10,500 remaining in prison in England & Wales. Currently, foreign criminals can be sent back to their home countries to serve the last year of their sentences. However, ministers are proposing to increase this period to 18 months. Measures on banning foreign criminals from returning to the UK are now being discussed.
Chalk also stated, ‘It’s right that foreign criminals are punished but it cannot be right that some are sat in prison costing taxpayers £47,000 a year when they could be deported.’
Shadow justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has called on the government to apologise for the state of the prison system. Quoted in the Guardian, she said ‘as everybody knows, the first stage of rehabilitation is to acknowledge your mistakes and make a sincere apology to those affected and let down by your actions or in his case inactions. His failure to do so today is utterly inexcusable.’
