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Prisoners in England who are let out and breach the terms of their release will return to jail only for a few weeks under the latest government plan to alleviate an overcrowding crisis.
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood on Wednesday unveiled a shake-up of prison “recall” policy that will reduce the amount of time for which some offenders are returned to prison.
Officials at the Ministry of Justice warned that without the measure, jails in England and Wales would hit full capacity again within six months.
As part of a broader effort to try to alleviate what Mahmood described as a “shameful” capacity crunch, the UK government also plans to build three new prisons, funded by a new investment of £4.7bn.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government has already taken emergency measures to reduce overcrowding, including the early release last year of thousands of inmates.
Amy Rees, the Ministry of Justice’s top civil servant, said on Wednesday that such measures “did not address the scale of the challenge”.
Under the new rules, to be introduced within weeks, more “recall” offenders who are facing sentences of between one and four years will be returned to prison for 28 days.
Some “recalled” prisoners already return for this period. However, others serve a “standard term”, meaning they are recalled either until their sentence expires or until the Parole Board directs their re-release.
Officials said that more than half of “recalls” resulted from non-compliance with licence conditions, such as failure to keep in contact with probation services. About a fifth, however, are for those charged with another offence.
Some offenders — such as those who have been recalled for committing a serious further offence — will be excluded from the measure.
The total number of prisoners recalled has more than doubled since 2018 to 13,600. In 1993 — the year Tory home secretary Lord Michael Howard set out his “prison works” vision — it was only about 100.
Mahmood insisted that the “recall” reforms would not jeopardise public safety and the running out of places was a greater risk.
“If our prisons overflow, courts cancel trials, police halt their arrests, crime goes unpunished and we reach a total breakdown of law and order,” she said.
“I was confronted by that prospect when I took office. I am confronted by it again now. But I will never let it happen.”
The previous Conservative government also sought to reduce the “recall” population, mandating 14-day recalls for those serving sentences of under a year.
The latest “recall” reforms were expected to free up about 1,400 places, Mahmood said.
The changes come as the government is preparing for a wider rethink of penal policy, having commissioned former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke to conduct an independent review of sentencing.
His recommendations are expected to include allowing prisoners to earn substantial reductions in the time they spend in jail for meeting certain conditions, such as good behaviour.
While Gauke’s recommendations are expected to give the Labour government political cover to reduce the number of people sent to jail and the length of their sentences, the justice secretary cautioned on Wednesday that they would “take time” to take effect.
She added: “On our current trajectory — hitting zero capacity in November — we simply do not have that time.”
Earlier this year the justice secretary visited Texas with Gauke to lean about a scheme allowing prisoners who comply with a “strict regime” to earn an early release, she said.
