More than 2,500 prisoners have been released as part of efforts to ease pressure on the UK’s strained prison system. The law was changed in July to allow some prisoners serving determinate sentences (those with fixed end dates) to be released early, after having served 40 per cent rather than 50 per cent of their time. A spokesperson defended the government, saying “there was no choice not to act” because failing to do so would have caused “complete paralysis of the [prison] system.” With places for just over 1,600 new prisoners remaining, space had to be freed up to ensure that police can continue to make arrests and courts can continue to send offenders to prison.
The underlying truth, however, is that our prison system needs urgent reform. The UK’s jails are overcrowded, unsafe, and do not successfully rehabilitate people for life beyond prison. The number of people in prison has more than doubled over the past three decades, whilst the resources to manage the prison population have not.
“We can never imprison our way to a safer society,” writes the Howard League for Penal Reform – especially when the underlying causes of crime (childhood neglect, substance abuse, poor mental health – the list goes on) remain unaddressed.
Whilst Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood speaks of plans to build more prisons, what remains clear is that we cannot hope to bring any meaningful change without improving conditions within existing jails. Ultimately, we must also address the issues of social justice that are the root cause of criminality.
Beyond the coming weeks – whilst those released last month attempt to integrate themselves back into the community – we must grapple with the fundamental questions of, as former prison governor Ian Acheson puts it, “why we lock people up and why we are so good at making bad people worse?”
Image by Ethan Wilkinson from Unsplash