About 700 prisoners have been released early from jails across England and Wales as the United Kingdom government began the first phase of a scheme aimed at tackling overcrowding in prisons.
The first batch of offenders was released on Thursday from dozens of prisons under the latest early-release programme, with some of those freed thanking Andy Burnham for his role in the revised scheme.
Among those released was 38-year-old Michael Bogle, a former bus driver and shoplifter from Brent, north London, who walked out of HMP Wandsworth after serving 78 days in prison.
Bogle, who had breached a 32-week suspended sentence for shoplifting, said he had been driven to steal because he had become homeless and needed food. He also described prison as “terrible”, saying there were “too many drugs”.
Asked about his message to Burnham, one of the prisoners released from HMP Wandsworth said, “Keep the early release going. It’s good.”
Outside HMP Durham in north-east England, another prisoner, dressed in shorts, a T-shirt and trainers and carrying his belongings in a bin bag, told journalists, “Justice system, what justice system? Thank you Andy Burnham.”
Another prisoner released from HMP Cardiff, when asked if he had a message for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said, “Thank you very much and don’t get me back here again, bro.”
The releases are part of a wider government plan to ease pressure on overcrowded prisons.
About 2,000 offenders, including some domestic abusers and violent offenders, are expected to be released over the next month, while another 3,000 are due to be released in stages over the following year.
The government initially planned to release about 6,000 prisoners, but the figure was reduced following intervention by Burnham.
Prisoners convicted of manslaughter are also excluded from the scheme.
The prison population in England and Wales stood at 87,499 on Monday, according to Ministry of Justice data, representing an increase of 1,738 from 85,761 on June 29.
The Ministry of Justice said released offenders would be monitored under the “toughest supervision in British history”.
However, victims’ commissioner Claire Waxman said the government’s confidence in the scheme “is not yet matched by the reality on the ground”.
The Labour MP for Derby North and chair of the Commons Justice Committee, Catherine Atkinson, described the releases as “regretfully a matter of necessity after more than a decade of policy failure to manage the estate’s long-running capacity issues”.
She said the safety of victims and the public “must be paramount”, while raising concerns about pressure on probation and prison staff, electronic monitoring and the system’s preparedness to manage offenders returning to communities.
Justice Secretary Alex Norris said, “We understand the anxiety victims face ahead of offenders’ release dates, but the greatest danger to victims would be prisons running out of cells for dangerous criminals, which was the crisis this government inherited.
“Our plan will make sure this never happens again by building 14,000 prison places while subjecting offenders to the toughest-ever controls, leaving them nowhere to hide and under no doubt that we are watching them.”
