- Sunak rejected early prisoner release proposal
- Self-harm, assault rates rise in prisons
- Labour blames Conservatives for prison crisis
Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street team rejected suggestions a year ago to seek early release of prisoners who had served less than half their sentences to alleviate prison overcrowding problems.
The suggestions were discussed inside No. 10 in June 2023, and Keir Starmer’s government endorsed a version two weeks ago.
According to insiders, Ministry of Justice officials asked No 10 to formally explore the move again in July 2023, this time in writing. However, it was rejected because Sunak’s aides feared Tory backbenchers would oppose it.
The revelation suggests Sunak and his staff were aware of the contentious suggestions at least eight months earlier than previously believed.
It comes as government numbers released on Monday show that self-harm rates in English and Welsh jails had risen to 73,804 instances in the year ending March 31, 2024, at a pace of one every seven minutes.
Over the same period, prisons recorded 28,292 assaults, a 19% increase over the previous year.
Sunak was instructed in May to change the minimum sentencing time, barely a week before the election, or face “a critical failure” of the criminal justice system.
According to a source familiar with the proceedings, officials were confident that conventional determinate sentences would alleviate pressure on the system, but Sunak’s advisers repeatedly overruled them.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has implemented emergency steps to prevent the prison system from collapsing. Jails have operated at 99% capacity since the beginning of 2023.
In England and Wales, the government temporarily decreased the proportion of some custodial sentences served in prison from 50% to 40% beginning in September. It has stated that it will include protections and exclusions to ensure public safety and detailed release plans to manage offenders securely in the community.
Mahmood blamed the prison crisis on the previous government.
“Those responsible, Sunak and his gang at No. 10 should be remembered as the guilty men. “The guilty men who prioritized their political careers over the safety and security of our country,” she stated.
Conservatives, including a former immigration minister competing for the party’s next leadership, have criticized Labour’s policy.
Robert Jenrick stated on X that “the British people did not vote to let criminals off scott-free [sic].”
According to sources, Sunak’s advisers repeatedly rejected similar proposals in favor of other measures, such as a presumption against short sentences and deporting more foreign national offenders, speeding up maintenance to bring cells back online, and reducing the remand population by implementing housing and tagging to allow more people to be released.
Requests for a standard determinate sentence plan were frequently debated and rejected by Sunak’s staff.
The government eventually prioritized the End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) plan beginning in October 2023. However, HMPPS staff advised that this would only provide temporary relief and should not be viewed as a long-term solution.
Alex Chalk, the previous justice secretary, stated that he planned to release some inmates after serving 40% of their sentence and to send fewer individuals to jail in the first place. Still, these plans were postponed due to concerns about a lack of support in parliament.
Ministry of Justice (MoJ) officials, including Chalk, who served as justice secretary from April 2023, have frequently told Downing Street that all other options had been exhausted and that they would have to seek early release to avoid disaster.
A former No. 10 aide acknowledged that MoJ officials and Chalk advocated for a lower proportion of some jail sentences served last year. However, the insider stated that the proposals were rejected because Sunak’s government would have needed help to persuade Tory backbenchers to support them.
The thought of releasing potentially dangerous prisoners made us physically nauseous.
The former aide stated that everything [MoJ officials] said to Shabana was also told to us last year, but we stood our ground and controlled the system instead.
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Mahmood has canceled the ECSL plan, which has released over 10,000 convicts up to 70 days early, and has demanded an independent investigation of Sunak’s decisions about early release schemes.
A Conservative official stated, “The previous Conservative government always prioritized public safety.”
We increased prison capacity by delivering 13,000 more prison spaces to ensure our prisons ran correctly.
We have always been clear that prisoner release should only be used as a last resort. The government should exhaust all other options before committing to this course of action and establish proper protections for the public.
