5,000 prisoners launched early from jail in England and Wales – precisely how Tory failure acquired us right here

About 5,000 criminals will be released early from prisons across England and Wales, in a bid to fix the “prison capacity crisis”, with some already released at the start of the month.

The controversial scheme will see some prisoners freed after serving just a third of their sentence, while more serious offenders will serve half. Originally scheduled to begin on September 2, the scheme was temporarily suspended by Andy Burnham just three days after he replaced Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.

He paused and reviewed the rollout following intense public and political backlash over the prospect of violent offenders – such as the killers of PC Andrew Harper – being set free early. Prisoners serving sentences for unlawful killing, manslaughter, causing death by dangerous driving, historic grooming, and serious sexual offences will now be blocked from the scheme.

But as the first tranche of 700 prisoners were released into the wild, we take a step back to ask – how did we get here?

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The problem

As of the end of August, there were 86,843 prisoners behind bars across England and Wales – taking up almost 98% of usable capacity, and leaving fewer than 2,100 places for new arrivals.

That’s when looking at the absolute maximum the prison estate can safely hold – there are already far more inmates than the system was designed to actually accommodate, and have been for some time.

Nearly one in four prisoners – 23% – are in overcrowded conditions, sharing cells designed to hold fewer people.

Overcrowding can lead to a host of problems, including fewer opportunities for rehabilitation through training, education and employment, more time spent in cells, and an increase in assaults and self-harm.

But prison overcrowding is not a new problem, so why is the early release scheme happening now? The government has made it clear that if the early release scheme does not go ahead, we will run out of cells entirely, and soon.

Projections show the prison population could tip over the 100,000 mark by May 2030, while capacity is expected to only increase slightly in comparison.

If prisons become full, the criminal justice system would collapse. The Ministry of Justice said: “Failure to act would put victims and the public at untold risk – with courts unable to hold trials, police unable to make arrests and crime going unpunished.”

The cause

A report by the Independent Sentencing Review last year found that since the turn of the century, successive UK governments have taken a “tough on crime” approach. This has focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation – with Labour and Conservatives competing to be the harshest on criminals.

While crime has actually declined since the mid-1990s, more offenders are being sent to prison and they are being given longer sentences. England and Wales now imprison more people per head than most of western Europe, behind only Poland.

On top of this, there’s been a spike in the number of offenders being recalled to prison having been released on license. In the year to March 2026, more than 51,400 prisoners had their license recalled – up 28% from the year before. In comparison, in 2000 the recall population was closer to just 9,000 inmates.

The increase follows a prior early release scheme that was introduced in September 2024 as an emergency measure to try and ease overcrowding, with prisons reaching 99% capacity. This saw eligible prisoners serve just 40% of their sentence, rather than 50% – and while it was successful in the short term, the sharp rise in recalls limited the overall impact.

Meanwhile, there has also been an increase in the number of defendants remanded in custody – those who have been arrested and are awaiting trial. The latest figure is 68% higher than it was in 2019 – partly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the court backlog.

Prisoners on remand now make up nearly 20% of the total prison population.

At the same time, efforts to increase prison capacity in recent years have been woefully insufficient to keep up with rising demand.

MoJ estimates show that while the last Conservative government did build thousands of new prison places between 2010 and 2024, almost as many were closed. It means fewer than 500 net places were actually added during that time – compared to more than 27,800 net prison places added over 13 years by the previous Labour government.

The current Labour government has pledged to build 14,000 prison places by 2031. But even if that is a net increase, it still falls short of the amount that would be needed if the early release scheme and other reforms do not go ahead.

The solution?

As shown by the spike in license recalls following the last early release scheme in 2024, this type of emergency measure is often a sticking plaster – unavoidably short term.

However, it will hopefully give prisons some breathing room while the government builds more places and finds longer-term, systemic solutions.

The early release scheme is just one component of the Sentencing Act 2026. Other key reforms include fewer short prison stays, longer suspended sentences, earlier automatic release, stricter probation rules, and fixed recall limits.

The changes restricting the use of short custodial sentences are particularly welcome, as sentences of 12 months or less are linked to high reoffending rates.

It means low-level, non-violent offenders, often dealing with untreated mental health issues, drug and alcohol addiction, poverty, and homelessness, are left trapped in a ‘revolving door’ of prison.

However, there are those that argue even these reforms don’t go far enough.

A spokesperson for the Prison Reform Trust said: “The government was right to introduce the early release scheme. With prisons close to capacity, changes to release arrangements were expected to provide the single biggest reduction in pressure on the system, and there are no easy alternatives capable of delivering the same impact in the short term.

“However, the prison capacity crisis was decades in the making, and no single reform will solve it. The Sentencing Act is an important step towards a more sustainable approach, but further action will be needed.

“Alongside creating additional capacity, ministers should look at other drivers of prison population growth, including the rising recall population and pressures in the remand system. In the long term, the only sustainable answer is a justice system that reserves prison for the most serious cases, reverses decades of sentence inflation, and does more to reduce reoffending in the community.”

The MoJ’s own analysis has found that community sentences are more effective at reducing reoffending compared to short prison stays – but the number has almost halved since 2012.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We inherited a justice system on the brink of collapse, but we’ve taken immediate action to fix it.

“We’re building 14,000 more prison places, imposing the toughest-ever controls on offenders, investing record sums in probation and victim support, and reforming the length of time people spend on recall to reduce the prison population. We will also deport thousands of foreign criminals and bring the injustice of IPP sentences to an end.”