Prisons to lay on coaches to deal with unprecedented early release of 1,750 criminals
Prisons are preparing to put on coaches to move hundreds of prisoners out of jails in the biggest early-release scheme for more than a decade.
The Prison Governors’ Association (PGA) said bosses of jails in more remote rural locations were planning to bus prisoners to the nearest public transport with 1,750 including some jailed for violence set to be freed under the Government’s early release scheme on Tuesday.
“They are considering whether they are going to have to lay on transport. Some of our prisons are really rural and train stations are quite a way away,” said Tom Wheatley, president of the PGA.
At some open prisons, as many as 20 per cent of the inmates are due to be released on Tuesday under the emergency scheme, known as standard determinate sentence 40 (SDS40) where they are freed 40 per cent of the way through their sentences rather than 50 per cent.
Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, was forced to introduce SDS40 to avoid running out of places with the number of prisoners reaching a record high of 88,521 on Friday due to the influx of jailed rioters. Last month The Telegraph revealed that spare places in men’s prisons fell to just 86.
She warned that without the early release scheme, there was a risk the criminal justice system would collapse as police would not be able to arrest criminals with the jails full, leaving offenders free to loot and run amok.
The 1,750 to be released on Tuesday is nearly double the normal 1,000 freed during a week. Governors have therefore had to rethink their normal procedures as their releases will have to be staggered through the day rather than, as usual, being freed in the morning.
“It means you have to make sure that if a prisoner has a long way to travel and has to sign on with their probation officer, they would have to be freed in the morning. They have to be thinking about the logistics of that,” said Mr Wheatley.
The biggest concern for prison and probation officials is how many may be freed without accommodation arranged in advance. A freed prisoner is up to three times more likely to re-offend if they are homeless, according to Ministry of Justice data (MoJ).
“If people go out homeless, there’s a big danger they fall back into offending, that they fall back into substance misuse. Some of them, sadly, would have developed a drug habit while they were in prison. Others will have had a drug habit in prison, which won’t have been treated,” said Charlie Taylor, chief inspector of prisons.
“The danger is they’ll go back into offending. But also, if they’re homeless, there’s a danger that they’ll miss probation appointments, therefore they’ll get breached by probation, and they’re back in prison very soon afterwards. It’s inevitable, there will be a number of cases where that will happen.”
According to government sources, ministers have two major fears – that there could be a significant number of recalls back to prison for reoffending or breaches of probation, and that a released prisoner could go on to commit a further serious offence.
“The most worrying thing is a serious further offence which, fingers crossed, won’t happen. But there’s always a danger that that can happen. At the moment the risk is increased because everybody’s having to work so frantically,” said a source.
Sex offenders, terrorists and criminals serving more than four years for violence are excluded from the scheme. However, offenders jailed for under four years for violence are still eligible.
The MoJ has also sought to limit the number of domestic abusers released by excluding prisoners serving sentences for crimes such as non-fatal throttling, coercive control, stalking, harassment or breach of a restraining or non-molestation order.
However, men who have assaulted their partners or ex-partners are still being released because their offence was not flagged as domestic abuse.
Among them is Shane Riley to be released after serving nine months of his 23-month sentence after headbutting, punching and kicking his former partner after she broke up with him.
By announcing SDS40 two months ago, it had aimed to give all relevant authorities and services the necessary time to prepare for the release of offenders in their area and to notify victims.
“We are almost giving people a better chance than they would have had through the normal run of things. There’s checking upon checking upon checking,” said Mr Wheatley.