For all the hype about the ‘Burnham bounce’ and the politics of hope, one intractable problem the government faces is the prison-overcrowding crisis and the early-release scheme. After a partial government U-turn, Andy Burnham has confirmed that around 2,550 prisoners will be released by the end of the year, with some eligible offenders serving as little as a third of their sentences. The decision to exclude those convicted of 71 categories of serious offences – including manslaughter, rape, child sexual abuse and grooming offences – is welcome. But how did we get here? And why was it left to the public to lobby the government to ensure that people convicted of some of the most serious crimes were not released despite serving only a fraction of their sentences?
At the same time, 856 people remain behind bars under the abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) scheme, having never been released. Eight in ten of those have now spent at least a decade in prison beyond the minimum term at which they could apply for parole. A further 1,415 IPP prisoners have been recalled to custody after being released on licence. For many members of the public, IPP sentences may well be a new concept, but Claire Fox, our director, has been involved in fighting for justice for IPP prisoners for some years.
In short: while ministers prepare to release some prisoners after serving barely a third of their sentences, others remain incarcerated years – or even decades – beyond their minimum terms under a scheme Parliament itself legislated to scrap.
With roughly 2,100 prison places that physically exist but are not presently usable in England and Wales, this case of government failure clearly goes far beyond mere accounting. So, we’ll be exploring what went wrong and what needs to be done at the Battle of Ideas this year in Letting abusers out early: solving the prison crisis. Read the session blurb below and grab yourself an early-bird ticket. Then read Claire Fox and Ian Acheson on IPP prisoners, before watching Claire’s recent speech outside Parliament.
Battle of Ideas festival 2026 takes place on Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 October in Westminster. Early-bird tickets are still available until 17 September. View the latest programme here and buy tickets here.
LETTING ABUSERS OUT EARLY: SOLVING THE PRISONS CRISIS
Battle of Ideas festival, Saturday 17 October, 10:15 –11:45am
The prison doors are opening. Prisoners, many violent, are being waved out with little care for the consequences. The understandable backlash by the British public includes particular anger about the plan to release two people found guilty of the manslaughter of PC Andrew Harper in 2019. Public pressure has been so great – including a petition with over one million signatories – that Andy Burnham pledged to find a way to stop the release of Harper’s killers.
But making exceptions sets dangerous precedents. Everyone understands that over-crowded prisons are at breaking point, but many question why law-abiding citizens, let alone the specific victims of crimes, have to face the repercussions of our failing criminal-justice system. The chosen solution of early release – started under the Tories, taken up more extensively by Keir Starmer and now the focus of a political problem for Andy Burnham – seems cavalier about society’s safety. Few are fans of the policy: polling shows 69 per cent of people in the UK are against the scheme, with 68 per cent having lost faith in the government’s handling of the criminal-justice system. And no wonder, when successive governments since the mid-2010s have failed to deliver the promised prison-expansion plan to address the rising prison population. Most pointedly, why has political failure resulted in the default response of shifting the issue onto communities?
In theory, early-release prisoners aren’t released freely; they remain under probation supervision. But can curfews, electronic tags, unpaid work and supervision orders really do the job prison is designed to do? This policy also relies on the capabilities of the probation services to meet the demands of the early-release scheme but with no corresponding increase in resources. In August, 90.7 per cent of the probation union voted in favour of potential strike action over already-high workloads and opposition to government plans. A strike would put public safety further at risk and derail the scheme, let alone the fact that their workload could go up exponentially if they have to police the government’s new wheeze: limiting those released who are still deemed a threat within restriction zones a few miles wide. What’s more, doesn’t this turn local areas, and a free society, into de facto prisons?
More than a crisis-measure, a new law – The Sentencing Act 2026 – will move roughly 5,000 prisoners out of incarceration. Some ‘eligible offenders’ will be released after serving only one third of their sentence, down from between 40 to 50 per cent. How can the public have faith in a sentencing regime when swathes of prisoners will only serve a fraction of the ordered sentence?
Something has got to give, but is the answer reducing the time served of sentences? What about emergency measures – like a prison equivalent of NHS Nightingale – to protect the public, or renovating those empty prison cells that currently fail some health-and-safety concerns? Others ask why so many non-British nationals are being kept in British jails, or why IPP prisoners remain in prison long after their time is served, on an abolished, discredited sentence? And rather than a pragmatic response to a lack of prison space, are we seeing an ideological turn against incarceration as punishment that dare note speak its name?
More on IPP
Britain’s Forgotten Prisoners
Claire Fox, AoI Substack, 10 June 2024
Screwed: Britain’s prison crisis and how to escape it
Claire Fox & Ian Acheson, AoI Substack, 21 April 2024
Claire Fox speech at protest in support of IPP prisoners, 15 July 2026
Ian Acheson's book 'Screwed' gives a clear picture of the state of our prisons and how this has come about. It is a very worrying situation.