UK prisons full to bursting – cobblers to that

The chairman of the UK’s Prison Officers’ Association says the rapid jailing of rioters who brought chaos to British streets earlier this month has left only 340 spaces in the country’s adult prisons. Yesterday the government deployed Operation Early Dawn, a contingency plan enabling suspects to be released on bail or kept in police cells rather than taken straight to a court hearing if there is no prison space available. Ministers insist no one who poses a danger to the public will be released. This is not the first time this year the measure has been used – under the Tories it was used in March and May – and it may not be the last.

Even before Labour’s election victory last month, the UK’s prisons crisis was the third most pressing issue on the “shit list” maintained by Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. Capacity was at 99 per cent, with prisoners spending more than 16 hours a day in their cells as a result. One of Starmer’s first moves as prime minister was to make James Timpson, boss of the eponymous cobblers and an advocate for prison reform, his new prisons minister, while Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, announced an early release scheme, reducing the average time offenders serve from 50 to 40 per cent of their sentence. Serious violence, sexual and domestic abuse-related offences will not be included. Around 5,500 prisoners are expected to be released in the first two months of the scheme, but even this may not be enough.

In February, the Ministry of Justice forecast that England and Wales’ prison population would increase from 87,900 this summer to 99,500 in 2025 and 106,300 by 2027. At the same time, sentences are getting longer – only four per cent of prisoners are serving sentences of less than a year. Meanwhile, of the 20,000 new prison spaces the Conservatives promised to create by the mid-2020s, barely 5,400 are ready.

Timpson may have a plan. As chief executive of Timpsons, he hired hundreds of former convicts and said only a third of offenders should be in prison, while another third should be getting mental health or other support. The final third, he believes, should not receive custodial time at all.

The speed with which he was hired suggests reforms may be imminent. Tortoise understands the riots have not changed the direction of travel, but have increased the pace: more measures are expected soon.