UK launches major sentencing review as it seeks to tackle prisons crisis

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The UK has launched a major review of sentencing policy as part of efforts to ease overcrowding in English and Welsh prisons and ensure “no government is forced into the emergency release of prisoners ever again”.

Led by David Gauke, the former Conservative justice secretary, the review will explore “tough alternatives to custody” as a way of addressing overcrowding in jails, which have been at the brink of capacity for more than a year.

The review was announced on Tuesday by the justice ministry, the same day that a fresh cohort of about 1,100 prisoners will be released under emergency measures to free up cell space.  

The early release scheme was initiated by the Labour government after it came into office in July, inheriting a prison system that in the words of justice secretary Shabana Mahmood was “within days of collapse”.

About 1,700 inmates were freed on September 10 under the policy, which reduces the period of time served for some offenders, excluding those serving four years or longer for violent and sexual offences, from 50 to 40 per cent of sentences.

The fresh wave of releases will include inmates who have been sentenced to more than five years in jail. The first round came into force for those serving sentences of less than five years.

The justice ministry said Gauke would, among other things, look at the use of technology “to place criminals in a ‘prison outside prison’” and community work so that prisons never reach this point of crisis again.  

“I believe in punishment. I believe in prison, but I also believe that we must increase the range of punishments we use. And that those prisoners who earn the right to turn their lives around should be encouraged to do so,” said justice secretary Shabana Mahmood.

She added that the review would ensure “there is always a cell waiting for dangerous offenders”. 

Gauke, who will submit his findings next year, said he would explore how to move the justice system out of crisis and towards a more sustainable future.

“Clearly, our prisons are not working. The prison population is increasing by around 4,500 every year, and nearly 90 per cent of those sentenced to custody are reoffenders,” he said.

The prison population in England and Wales has roughly doubled in the past 30 years to 87,000, as successive governments have introduced longer sentences.

Conditions in prisons have steadily worsened over the period, with the independent inspectorate of prisons warning in recent reports of surging levels of drug use, violence and failing rehabilitation.  

The ministry of justice has committed to building an additional 14,000 prison places in England and Wales, up from 87,900 in July. Mahmood has indicated that the number of women sent to jail could also be sharply reduced.  

Charities welcomed the launch of the review, saying it signalled a recognition that the government cannot build its way out of the crisis.

Both short sentences, which prison charities have long warned are often counter-productive, and longer sentences for more serious offences, will come under scrutiny by the review.

“We hope that the government will accept that to have a safe and sustainable prison system, the sentencing has to be brought in line with the resources available,” said Andrew Neilson, campaigns director at the Howard League for Penal Reform, a charity that advocates for changes to the prison system.

He added that there was a quantitative crisis in prison, due to the pressure on cell space, but there was also a “qualitative” one due to the erosion of rehabilitation and training behind bars.

“Prisons are not doing anything to rehabilitate people — they are actively making people worse,” he said.

Overall, about 5,500 inmates are expected to be released under the emergency measures. But because of an influx of about 400 new inmates since rioting in the summer, the Prison Governors’ Association has said the early release programme would only buy the government around a year’s leeway at best.

Mark Day, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, called the review “a vital opportunity to reset the dial on decades of failure in penal policymaking”.