Chief prisons inspector warns of ‘revolving door’ as around 1,750 inmates are set for early release
The chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales has warned that today’s early release of around 1,750 offenders is going to be “risky”.
It is being done to create space in the country’s overcrowded prisons and the government insists the alternative was “unthinkable” and would have led to a “total collapse of the criminal justice system”.
But HMP Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor told Sky News: “It’s a risky time with so many prisoners coming out at the same time. Normally, there are about 1,000 prisoners coming out a week. Most of those 1,000 prisoners will still come out this week. But on top of that, we’ve got 1,700 other prisoners, and then in October, we have another tranche of around 2,000 coming out as well, inevitably, that puts some risks into local communities and greater strain on already stretched probation services.”
Justifying the decision, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “We inherited a prison system on the point of collapse. This is not a change we wanted to make – it was the only option left on the table because the alternative would have seen a total collapse of the criminal justice system.
“We would have seen the breakdown of law and order because courts would not have been able to conduct trials, and the police would not have been able to make arrests.”
Early release will not apply to sexual offences, serious violence and terrorism offences and some cases relating to domestic abuse. The government says it announced the decision as early as possible to give probation services time to prepare.
The mass release coincides with a damning report from the chief inspector which describes a “devastating picture” of life behind bars with “a surge in illicit drug use, self-harm and violence”.
Out of 32 inspected prisons 30 were “poor or insufficiently good” and 60% were overcrowded.
It found that often planned releases were underfunded. At Bedford Prison 30% of those leaving jail had nowhere to live.
Former HMP Parc inmate Zack Griffiths said drugs came into the prison via corrupt officers
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Mr Taylor said: “Unless we make sure that people are kept in decent conditions and that they’re doing the work they need to do in order to go out and be successful when they leave prison, then the danger is we end up, as we see in so many cases, that prisoners are simply a revolving door; untreated mental health problems, untreated drug users, people with nowhere to live when they come out, and that just creates more victims of crime, more mayhem in communities and a prison population that is now almost unmanageable.”
His report says the previous government’s early release scheme lessened some pressures temporarily, but did not solve the problem.
Campaigners say that overcrowding is fatal for some prisoners and that overcrowded jails along with staff shortages, mean that inmates are at greater risk of drug addiction and self-harm.
Earlier this year there were 10 deaths in just three months in Parc prison in Bridgend.
A number are thought to be related to synthetic drugs such as spice and nitazines.
Self-harm also doubled in the prison in the last year from 1,088 recorded incidents to 2,330.
26-year-old Ryan Harding was two months from being released from Parc prison when he died of an apparent overdose in January last year.
Ryan Harding died in prison
He’d not been known to use hard drugs, but his mother Catherine Harding says an ombudsman report found synthetic drugs were in his system.
Ms Harding blames the prison for his death saying her son was more vulnerable because he wasn’t getting enough of his medication for epilepsy, and she believes prison officers were among those bringing drugs onto the blocks.
She told Sky News: “I know there were drugs going in there and it wasn’t the prisoners taking them in, or the visitors, it was the prison officers – there’s no other explanation.”
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Catherine Harding’s son died of an apparent overdose in HMP Parc
HMP Parc is privately run by G4S.
A G4S spokesperson said: “We send our condolences to Ms Harding and the families who have lost loved ones.
“The vast majority of our staff are honest and hardworking, but, in common with other prisons, we face the challenge of criminal behaviour from a small minority.”
The prison can’t comment on Mr Harding’s case because of an ongoing investigation.
There has been a recent case of corruption at the prison.
In August this year Parc prison officer Jodie Beer, 30, was jailed for six years for attempting to smuggle drugs to an inmate concealed in orange juice cartons.
Jodie Beer was jailed following an investigation by Tarian, the southern Wales regional organised crime unit Pic: Tarian
Zack Griffiths, 32, who was in HMP Parc last year for drug offences set up a campaign group called HMP Prisons Justice Group UK.
He said drugs came into Parc prison through corrupt officers, but also drones were being flown up to some of the windows on certain blocks.
He added: “Very often these drugs are be mixed with very potent synthetic opiates. If you’re not a chemist, how would you know or mixtures you give to people? How do you know what the tolerance levels of the person who’s going to take the drugs are? That’s how people end up dead.”
Zack Griffiths says ‘unstable’ inmates are set for release
He says some prisoners are locked up in their cells for up to 23 hours a day and this makes them vulnerable to drug addiction.
He told Sky News: “What we’re talking about here is placing the public at harm, because these people are not being rehabilitated. Inmates are going to come back out onto the streets in your towns, villages and cities, and I consider them to be a higher risk because they’re using drugs, they’re unstable.”
Parc Prison insists it offers a good rehabilitation programme and told Sky News: “We hold a complex cohort of prisoners, many with mental health and substance misuse issues. We are committed to supporting men through our multidisciplinary team of prison and NHS staff.”
Some inmates at Parc will be among the hundreds being released today from prisons across England and Wales.
But with prison recalls already on the rise, it is perhaps inevitable that some will reoffend or breach their bail conditions and find themselves back behind bars.
UK
Specialist teams and online investigators deployed across England and Wales to tackle ‘national emergency’ of violence against women and girls
Specialist investigation teams for rape and sexual offences are to be created across England and Wales as the Home Secretary declares violence against women and girls a “national emergency”.
Shabana Mahmood said the dedicated units will be in place across every force by 2029 as part of Labour’s violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy due to be launched later this week.
The use of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs), which had been trialled in several areas, will also be rolled out across England and Wales. They are designed to target abusers by imposing curfews, electronic tags and exclusion zones.
The orders cover all forms of domestic abuse, including economic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking and ‘honour’-based abuse. Breaching the terms can carry a prison term of up to 5 years.
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Govt ‘thinking again’ on abuse strategy
Nearly £2m will also be spent funding a network of officers to target offenders operating within the online space.
Teams will use covert and intelligence techniques to tackle violence against women and girls via apps and websites.
A similar undercover network funded by the Home Office to examine child sexual abuse has arrested over 1,700 perpetrators.
Abuse is ‘national emergency’
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in a statement: “This government has declared violence against women and girls a national emergency.
“For too long, these crimes have been considered a fact of life. That’s not good enough. We will halve it in a decade.
“Today we announce a range of measures to bear down on abusers, stopping them in their tracks. Rapists, sex offenders and abusers will have nowhere to hide.”
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Angiolini Inquiry: Recommendations are ‘not difficult’
The target to halve violence against women and girls in a decade is a Labour manifesto pledge.
The government said the measures build on existing policy, including facial recognition technology to identify offenders, improving protections for stalking victims, making strangulation a criminal offence and establishing domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms.
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Demands for violence and abuse reforms
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Labour has ‘failed women’
But the Conservatives said Labour had “failed women” and “broken its promises” by delaying the publication of the violence against women and girls strategy.
Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, said that Labour “shrinks from uncomfortable truths, voting against tougher sentences and presiding over falling sex-offender convictions. At every turn, Labour has failed women.”
There have been no migrant arrivals in small boats crossing the Channel for 28 days, according to Home Office figures.
The last recorded arrivals were on 14 November, making it the longest uninterrupted run since autumn 2018 after no reported arrivals on Friday.
However, a number of Border Force vessels were active in the English Channel on Saturday morning, indicating that there may be arrivals today.
So far, 39,292 people have crossed to the UK aboard small boats this year – already more than any other year except 2022.
The record that year was set at 45,774 arrivals.
It comes as the government has stepped up efforts in recent months to deter people from risking their lives crossing the Channel – but measures are not expected to have an impact until next year.
Debris of a small boat used by people thought to be migrants to cross the Channel lays amongst the sand dunes in Gravelines, France. Pic: PA
December is normally one of the quietest for Channel crossings, with a combination of poor visibility, low temperatures, less daylight and stormy weather making the perilous journey more difficult.
The most arrivals recorded in the month of December is 3,254, in 2024.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy met with ministers from other European countries this week as discussions over possible reform to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) continue.
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France agrees to start intercepting small boats
The issue of small boat arrivals – a very small percentage of overall UK immigration – has become a salient issue in British politics in recent years.
Last month, French maritime police announced they would soon be able to intercept boats in the English Channel.
The King has shared in a television address that, thanks to early diagnosis, his cancer treatment can be reduced in the new year.
In a televised address, Charles said his “good news” was “thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to doctors’ orders”.
“This milestone is both a personal blessing and a testimony to the remarkable advances that have been made in cancer care in recent years,” he added.
“Testimony that I hope may give encouragement to the 50% of us who will be diagnosed with the illness at some point in our lives.”
The King announced in February 2024 that he had been diagnosed with cancer and was beginning treatment.
The monarch postponed all public-facing engagements, but continued with his duties as head of state behind palace walls, conducting audiences and Privy Council meetings.
He returned to public duties in April last year and visited University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre in central London with the Queen and discussed his “shock” at being diagnosed when he spoke to a fellow cancer patient.
Sources suggested last December his treatment would continue in 2025 and was “moving in a positive direction”.
The King began returning to public duties in April last year. File pic: PA
The King has chosen not to reveal what kind of cancer he has been treated for. Palace sources have partly put that down to the fact that he doesn’t want one type of cancer to appear more significant or attract more attention than others.
In a statement after the speech aired, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “His Majesty has responded exceptionally well to treatment and his doctors advise that ongoing measures will now move into a precautionary phase.”
Sir Keir Starmer praised the video message as “a powerful message,” and said: “I know I speak for the entire country when I say how glad I am that his cancer treatment will be reduced in the new year.
“Early cancer screening saves lives.”
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Watch: King Charles gives update on treatment
Early detection can give ‘the precious gift of hope’
His message on Friday was broadcast at 8pm in support of Stand Up To Cancer, a joint campaign by Cancer Research UK and Channel 4.
In an appeal to people to get screened for the disease early, the King said: “I know from my own experience that a cancer diagnosis can feel overwhelming.
“Yet I also know that early detection is the key that can transform treatment journeys, giving invaluable time to medical teams – and, to their patients, the precious gift of hope. These are gifts we can all help deliver.”
Charles noted that “at least nine million people in our country are not up to date with the cancer screenings available to them,” adding: “That is at least nine million opportunities for early diagnosis being missed.
“The statistics speak with stark clarity. To take just one example: When bowel cancer is caught at the earliest stage, around nine in ten people survive for at least five years.
“When diagnosed late, that falls to just one in ten. Early diagnosis quite simply saves lives.”
Minor inconvenience of screening ‘a small price to pay’
The King acknowledged that people often avoid screening “because they imagine it may be frightening, embarrassing or uncomfortable”. But, he added: “If and when they do finally take up their invitation, they are glad they took part.
“A few moments of minor inconvenience are a small price to pay for the reassurance that comes for most people when they are either told either they don’t need further tests, or, for some, are given the chance to enable early detection, with the life-saving intervention that can follow.”
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Giving his “most heartfelt thanks” to doctors, nurses, researchers and charity workers, the King added: “As I have observed before, the darkest moments of illness can be illuminated by the greatest compassion. But compassion must be paired with action.
“This December, as we gather to reflect on the year past, I pray that we can each pledge, as part of our resolutions for the year ahead, to play our part in helping to catch cancer early.
“Your life – or the life of someone you love – may depend upon it.”
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