Earlier Release for Prisoners

 

Letting prisoners out early is not something you’d associate with Justice Secretary Dominic Raab. But lack of prison space seems to have forced him to extend by six weeks the period eligible offenders can serve their sentence at home monitored via an electronic tag.  The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Home Detention Curfew) Order 2023, assuming MPs approve it, will raise the maximum length of the Home Detention Curfew (HDC) period from 135 to 180 days. Prisons Minister Damian Hinds told the Justice Committee in a letter that   "this is a common-sense approach to managing the sentence for a cohort of offenders serving shorter, standard determinate sentences for less serious offences."

When it was first introduced in 1999, prisoners could spend up to 60 days on HDC, a limit which has been raised twice since. The first Johnson government took steps to raise it again in 2019, but abandoned the process for obtaining parliamentary approval shortly before the last General Election. Hinds says this was done "so that we could focus on the proposals in our Sentencing White Paper for tackling serious violent and sexual offenders." Presumably letting prisoners out sooner was seen to sit uncomfortably with the Conservative manifesto promise of tougher sentencing for criminals. But Hinds says "the timing is now right to make this change," emphasising that "there should be no doubt that when it comes to managing offenders, protecting the public will always be our primary concern".

Although Hinds' letter doesn't mention it, it's almost certain that it is rising prison numbers that have prompted the extension of HDC. Population pressures have already forced ministers to authorise the use of police cells to accommodate prisoners. As the top official in the Ministry of Justice told MPs last month, on prison places, "we are working through with Ministers all options to manage down demand and maximise supply". This looks like one of the results.   

The MoJ say that this time round tighter eligibility criteria and improved assessment will in fact reduce the number of prisoners released on HDC. But those who are freed early will be able to come out up to 45 days sooner than at present. The net impact of the changes is forecast to be a reduction of between 400 and 600 in demand for prison places. 

In fact, no legal amendments are being made to the eligibility requirements or suitability criteria. Prison service policy will however be changed so that people serving a sentence for 11 offences linked to domestic abuse, including harassment and stalking, will be presumed unsuitable for HDC. I would expect Parliament's Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments to probe the reasons for, and likely impact of these changes if and when they consider them.

The purported objective of longer HDC periods is to enable prisoners to manage better their transition into the community on release from custody. The policy won't save money as increased costs for tagging, probation and community accommodation will dwarf marginal savings to the prison budget. But as the Impact Assessment on the policy says, it “may contribute to making prisons safer places for both prisoners and staff, by delivering a modest reduction in prison population thereby enabling staff to be better placed to work with prisoners”.

As such it’s a welcome move which will give prisons a much needed breathing space when the change is made in June. In the meantime, the Prison Service has introduced Gold Command arrangements for dealing with the capacity crisis, meaning a senior governor in HQ will make decisions about where prisoners should go. At the end of January, the population in two prisons in the North West, Liverpool and Preston, exceeded operational capacity- that is the total number of prisoners that an establishment can hold taking into account control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime. 

The Criminal Justice System Strategic Command (CJSSC) is also "standing up their operation" in recognition of the circumstances facing the prisons. This is the body set up in 2020 to coordinate the response to the pandemic.  That it is needed once again suggests the depth of the challenge facing criminal justice now.