The Government is expected to announce that prisoners serving sentences of a fixed length will be automatically released after serving 40 percent of their sentence, rather than at the midway point.
In a speech this afternoon, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood will announce the release thousands of prisoners early because space in England and Wales’ prisons is fast running out.
She will describe the appalling state which Britain’s prisons have been allowed to fall into, and the next steps needed to pull the criminal justice system “back from the brink of total collapse,”
Exemptions for sexual and serious violent offenders and terrorists will be in place and reports say that measure will only be applied to inmates serving sentences of under four years. Domestic abusers may also be excluded.
The announcement is expected to release around 5,000 prison places left. Last Friday the adult population stood at 87,453, out of a total usable capacity of 88,864. So that was indicative of 1,411 spaces left.
