About 650 offenders are leaving prisons in England and Wales on Tuesday, 13 October, after serving a third of their sentence rather than half.
MPs said hundreds of released prisoners were not tagged by Serco, and the Metropolitan Police is dealing with more than 100 electronic tag breaches a day in London.
Napo rejected a conditional 5% pay offer, and a formal ballot on industrial action is due to launch on 19 October.
The prison population stood at 87,499 on Monday, 12 October, up from 85,761 on 29 June.
About 650 offenders were due to leave prisons across England and Wales on Tuesday, 13 October, in the second phase of the government's early release scheme. Under the new rules they leave after serving a third of their sentence behind bars rather than half, and some were freed as little as a third of the way through terms of 18 months to two and a half years. The first phase freed some 700 offenders on 1 October. Later batches will reach offenders with increasingly long sentences, and those serving more than 12 years could walk free from June 2027. Prisoners convicted of manslaughter are excluded, so the killers of a police constable who died in 2019 will not be eligible. An intervention by Andy Burnham, the new prime minister, cut the overall total from 6,000 to about 2,000 freed in October 2026 plus another 3,000 in stages over the next year, and ministers also intervened to exempt rapists and the most serious child sex offenders.
MPs said hundreds of prisoners released early, including stalkers and violent offenders, were not being tagged by Serco, the outsourcing company. Clive Efford, the Labour MP for Eltham and Chislehurst, raised the issue in an urgent question in the Commons on Tuesday, 13 October, and said the firm had failed to source enough tags for prisoners leaving each jail.
“They are not actually fulfilling their contracts.”
Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, said most prisoners were not being tagged before release despite promises of the toughest tagging regime in history, and the justice minister Jake Richards replied that the department was working with the contractor.
“We are working closely with Serco and have seen an improvement in the implementation since March this year.”
Sir Mark Rowley told LBC that he was "worried" about offenders being released into communities. The Metropolitan Police said it was arresting 2 to 3 early-release offenders a week since the start of August and dealing with more than 100 electronic tag breaches a day in London. A report in the week of 5 October found almost half of tags used to track offenders were not fitted on time, and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation believes victims are being put at risk.
Pay talks with probation officers ended with a conditional "best and final" offer worth 5%, which the union's negotiating committee rejected. Members will be asked to vote on industrial action over pay, along with a question on workloads, in a formal ballot launching on 19 October. Napo held a pre-ballot meeting on Tuesday, 13 October, and says probation has been asked to take on huge amounts of extra work because tens of thousands of prisoners have been released early since 2022. The Institute for Government's latest report on probation in England and Wales describes near-constant organisational change, de-skilling, and recalls to prison for breached conditions rather than new offences. According to the Telegraph, more than a third of the extra prison spaces created by the scheme have been wiped out within a week, with criminals being recalled.
Ministry of Justice weekly data put the prison population of England and Wales at 87,499 on Monday, 12 October, up from 85,761 on 29 June, a rise of 2%.
Data from the article text
Pollar is free and carries no ads in the text. Its members keep it going.
Support PollarSafety · Durham, Bristol, and London
The second phase of England and Wales' early release scheme began on Tuesday, 13 October, with about 650 offenders due to leave jail, as MPs and police raised concerns over tagging.
AI text based on reports by The Guardian, The Telegraph, LBC and other publishers. Changed .