The UK Prime Minister has said he has asked the Justice Secretary to present a plan to Parliament in early September aimed at reducing the number of prisoners released early, responding to public anger over the impending release of the killers of PC Andrew Harper. Speaking as one of the first major policy challenges of his leadership, the Prime Minister said he had heard the depth of concern felt across the country and that he feels for the family and the anguish they are going through. He insisted he had pushed the system every single day to go further and did not accept that it was impossible to do more, arguing there is more that can be done to avoid releasing so many people early.
The reason an early release scheme exists at all is that prisons in England and Wales are essentially full, according to BBC Verify. The latest data shows there are around 87,000 prisoners this week, which puts the estate at roughly 97 percent capacity. Under the scheme, lower-risk prisoners can be released after serving 40 percent of their sentence rather than the standard 50 percent, a change introduced to relieve the pressure on overcrowded jails. Officials have warned that without further steps the capacity could collapse within months.
The early release arrangements were already watered down on 3 August to exclude people convicted of rape, grooming and serious child sex offences. The scheme also does not apply to violent offenders serving more than four years, to sex offenders, to those imprisoned for domestic abuse, or to prisoners on life sentences. Even with those carve-outs, the government has continued to look for ways to ease the strain on the system, prompting the search for additional measures now being drawn up for the autumn.
The immediate trigger for the intervention is the case of PC Andrew Harper, the Thames Valley Police traffic officer killed in the line of duty. Two of his killers, who were sentenced to 13 years for manslaughter in 2020, are due to become eligible for release next January after serving half of their terms. The men were in a getaway car that dragged the officer behind it as they fled the scene of a quad bike theft, a detail that has kept public feeling raw and fuelled demands that they should not be freed early.
To further limit early releases without letting the prison population overflow, the government has identified three main areas. The first is deporting a greater number of foreign national offenders to their country of origin. The second is reducing the number of people held on imprisonment for public protection sentences, known as IPP, which are indeterminate and which many observers regard as unjust. The third is making more effective use of the women's prison estate, in effect by managing more female offenders outside jail.
According to a breakdown set out by BBC Verify, there are currently around 3,000 women in prison, roughly 2,000 male IPP prisoners and about 10,000 male foreign nationals behind bars, with the rest making up the total of about 87,000. In theory that puts around 15,000 people, or close to 17 percent of the prison population, within the scope of the three ideas. Whether all of those prisoners could realistically be covered by the plan remains a far bigger and more uncertain question.
Analysts caution that each strand faces significant hurdles. Other countries may not be willing to accept back the foreign prisoners the government would like to deport, which could blunt one of the largest potential savings. The IPP sentences raise their own legal and ethical complications, given that people jailed young have effectively been held indeterminately in a way many consider unfair. The Prime Minister has framed the coming plan as part of a wider effort to relieve prison capacity, with the detailed proposals promised to Parliament in early September.