British prison reform will release convicts after serving 40% of term
The United Kingdom’s new Labour government announced that prisoners who have served 40% of their sentence could be released as a way to combat overcrowding in facilities across the country.
“The guilty men in the last government left our prisons on the brink of collapse,” British Secretary of State for Justice Shabana Mahmood wrote on social media platform X. “They put their political interests before the country, & left us facing a total breakdown of law and order.”
“Today, I set out emergency measures that will grip the prisons crisis,” she insisted.
Mahmoud laid out in a press release that “only hundreds of places” remain in adult male prisons and that U.K. prisons have operated at “over 99% capacity since the start of 2023,” with space expected to be fully occupied within weeks.
To combat the problem, Mahmoud has authorized a change to early release measures, reducing custodial sentences served in prison from 50% to 40% but stressing that the policy would include “important safeguards and exemptions” to keep the public safe.
The policy will go into effect in September and will include “regular publications of releases under the changes to standard determinate sentences.”
The U.K. will often release criminals for certain types of offenses “on license” – the equivalent of releasing a prisoner on probation – with conditions that include regular contact with a supervising officer, reporting all addresses and movements to the court, receive approval for any jobs and a ban on travel outside of the United Kingdom.
The Ministry of Justice in the press release claimed that the new policy would lead to over 10,000 offenders being released early, which would be around 11% of all beds: The New York Times cited a figure of just under 89,000 total population before the U.K. prisons hit their maximum “operational capacity.”
ABC News reported that the total prison population under old policies could hit around 99,000 by the end of next year without changes. Mahmood has warned that overflow would force local police stations to use their prison cells, leading to a ripple effect that she claims would cause collapse of the justice system.
The new policy will not apply to any convicts of sex offenses or domestic abuse-connected crimes, including stalking offenses, controlling or coercive behaviors in an intimate or family relationship, non-fatal strangulation and suffocation and any convicts who have breached restraining orders and abuse protection orders.
Previous policy has held that anyone given a life sentence and released on license must remain on those parole conditions for the remainder of their lives.
(Fox News)
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