The “shocking” prisons crisis is even worse than feared, Keir Starmer has said as the government prepares to release tens of thousands of inmates early in a bid to prevent jails becoming full.
Starmer pointed to a report in May which found that a high-risk prisoner had his release date brought forward despite a history of stalking and domestic abuse, and being subject to a restraining order.
Asked what the terms of the prisoner release scheme would be, Starmer said he had “pressed Rishi Sunak hard” on that case in parliament, adding: “We will set that all out when we make a statement in coming days.
“So no matter what people’s opinions are, or how unpalatable the announcement may be, there is an urgent need to decrease the prison population and give our members some breathing space so we can start to reverse the chaos of the last 14 years.”
The government is understood to have no plans for a queuing system for sentences and it is hoped that the releases will buy enough time to begin efforts to build capacity and start to address reoffending rates.
On his way to Washington for the Nato summit, Starmer also warned there would be no immediate fixes to the small boats crisis of asylum seekers crossing the Channel, suggesting he expected numbers to rise over the summer months.
The original article contains 1,099 words, the summary contains 226 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The “shocking” prisons crisis is even worse than feared, Keir Starmer has said as the government prepares to release tens of thousands of inmates early in a bid to prevent jails becoming full.
Starmer pointed to a report in May which found that a high-risk prisoner had his release date brought forward despite a history of stalking and domestic abuse, and being subject to a restraining order.
Asked what the terms of the prisoner release scheme would be, Starmer said he had “pressed Rishi Sunak hard” on that case in parliament, adding: “We will set that all out when we make a statement in coming days.
“So no matter what people’s opinions are, or how unpalatable the announcement may be, there is an urgent need to decrease the prison population and give our members some breathing space so we can start to reverse the chaos of the last 14 years.”
The government is understood to have no plans for a queuing system for sentences and it is hoped that the releases will buy enough time to begin efforts to build capacity and start to address reoffending rates.
On his way to Washington for the Nato summit, Starmer also warned there would be no immediate fixes to the small boats crisis of asylum seekers crossing the Channel, suggesting he expected numbers to rise over the summer months.
The original article contains 1,099 words, the summary contains 226 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!