The UK planned to release a second group of 1,000 inmates early on Tuesday as the government began reviewing sentencing policies to tackle the persistent issue of overcrowded prisons.
This debated policy had earlier resulted in the early release of 1,700 prisoners last month.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood reassured the public that previous mistakes, which had seen 37 prisoners wrongfully released, had now been “corrected.
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.
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.
Mahmood said the early release scheme had been forced on the government by a prison crisis inherited from the last Conservative government.
She 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 places across the whole of the country,” she told Sky News.
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As a Conservative justice minister 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.
