Thousands of prisoners will be released earlier from in another emergency measure to “end the cycle of crisis” in prisons.
In a speech from Downing Street on Wednesday, Justice Secretary said three new prisons will be built as part of a "record prison expansion" backed by £4.7billion. But bosses said jails will completely run out of space in five months if urgent action is not taken in the meantime.
To free up spaces, Ms announced a shake-up of prison recall measures which means prisoners serving between one and four years' jail time can be returned to prison only for "a fixed 28-day period". Offenders are recalled to if they commit another offence when they are released early but remain on licence.
The recall population currently stands at 13,583, so thousands of offenders are expected to be gradually released early when the 28-day limit comes into force. The measure is expected to free up around 1,400 prison places in total, taking into account offenders going into the system.
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Prisoners who are recalled because of a serious further offence will not be subject to the 28-day limit, nor will those managed by multiple agencies, which will cover sex offenders and serious domestic abusers. Legislation to bring in the measure could be introduced as early as next week.
Challenged about the risk to the public, Ms Mahmood stressed that “the thing that brings the most risk to the public” is if the country goes down to zero available jail spaces. “I understand the concerns of victims groups and others,” she told reporters.
"The very worst thing that could happen is we hit zero in November. At that point you see the breakdown of law and order in this country. If we hit zero in November, then police cannot make arrests, courts can't form trials, and the whole system then collapses.”
The latest measures are aimed at dealing with the scale of the continuing crisis in prisons, as the latest weekly prison population in England and Wales stands at 88,087. This is 434 below the last peak in the prison population of 88,521 inmates on September 6, recorded just before the Government began freeing thousands of prisoners early as part of efforts to curb jail overcrowding.
A longer-term sentencing review could be published next week, but any reforms will not start having an effect until April next year.
Ms Mahmood also announced the building of three new prisons as a result of the £4.7billion capital investment, including "breaking ground" on a site near HMP Gartree in Leicestershire "later this year".
Amy Rees, the Ministry of Justice’s interim permanent secretary, said the Government would "run out of prison places in just five months' time", if further measures were not taken.
"On our current trajectory, the prison population rises by 3,000, and now we expect to hit zero capacity, to entirely run out of prison places for adult men, in November of this year," the top civil servant added.
Early release measures have "only bought the service time", Ms Rees said, including freeing prisoners after serving 40% of their sentence, instead of 50%.
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