Early Prison Release Scheme Causes Fresh Homelessness Concerns for Government
In September of this year, the Labour government implemented their early prisoner release scheme aimed at freeing space in prisons. The plan was initially proposed by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, however after the general election in July, Labour made tweaks and implemented the scheme last week. While it has received widespread backlash across the media, at FPH we certainly agree with freeing those jailed under minor offences and offering ex-prisoners opportunity and shelter.
Despite this, there is an issue that will likely be worsened by the early release of prisoners – the soaring levels of homelessness and rough sleepers in Britain.
The government outlined their reasoning for the scheme and on the surface, it does provide hope that this premiership will take an approach based on rehabilitation rather than headline-grabbing punishment. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said the early release scheme was necessary because it had "inherited prisons in crisis and on the brink of collapse".
There is credence in this assertion. MOJ statistics show that the total England and Wales prison population as of September 2024 was 88,521 - a record high. When contrasted with the operational capacity of prisons in England and Wales, this leaves space for just 1098 more prisoners (BBC).
Essentially, there is not enough leeway to successfully send prosecuted criminals to safe and operational prisons.
With this in mind, the idea of freeing up prison space has merit. In the first week of the scheme, 1700 ex-offenders were released and another 3800 will leave Prison by the end of October, leaving operational capacity of around 6600. With the government looking to take a hardline approach to those convicted of rioting during the summer, the plans make sense.
The government have also outlined the eligibility of offences and sentences of people who can be freed. Those eligible will include prisoners who have served 40% of their sentences which do not include violent crimes, those serving life at the mercy of parole boards and those convicted of sexual crimes and domestic abuse.
The government has faced criticism this week following the release of Amari Ward who will face Maidstone Crown Court next month faced with charges of sexual assault – appearing to contradict the qualifications outlined.
At FPH, we support providing second chances, opportunity and shelter to ex-offenders. There is merit in allowing those convicted of minor offences an early release in order to provide them with a chance of bettering themselves. With this in mind, the concept is something that should be supported. In practicality, it will provide even more issues to a government facing what they describe as the “worst housing crisis for a generation” and soaring levels of homelessness.
Homelessness has reached record levels in England. As of February 2024, government figures estimate that 3898 people were sleeping rough in England last year, an increase of over 25% from the previous years figures. According to Crisis, this is 61% higher than the numbers in 2014 and 120% higher than the figures when data collection began in 2010.
Furthermore, fellow housing and homelessness charity Shelter published annual research that showed over 300,000 people in England were without a home for Christmas last year.
All of these figures were published before the release of over 5000 prisoners.
Ex-offenders are among those most likely to experience homelessness and rough sleeping in the UK. Many prisoners we have encountered have stated their preference of being locked up, citing safety and health reasons as primary factors.
Upon the release of the first prisoners under the new scheme, LBC conducted interviews with ex-offenders as they left prison and these sentiments were repeated by several prisoners.
Jackie, a newly released prisoner, admitted that while prison “isn't brilliant”, he'd have preferred to stay inside, with “a warm cell, television, kettle, and three meals a day”. He stated that the tendency to drink too much and sleep on park benches made it easy to re-offend and end up in exactly the place he was released in short order.
As unfathomable as it sounds for people to prefer prison to so-called freedom, the reality is there is not enough nationwide support for ex-offenders when they leave prison. Charities like FPH, Shelter and Crisis can do their part but the security of shelter, three meals a day, showers and even home comforts like television are provided in prisons throughout the UK and they aren’t available to many who leave prison like those released over the last week.
Labour may be promising to tackle the issues of homelessness and rough sleeping and while it is too early to judge their efforts after a few months in power, it does seem that this scheme, while great in principle, will only worsen the issue at hand. The government have promised to end no-fault evictions and increase temporary housing throughout Britain, however very little progress has been actually made on these fronts and there will inevitably be even more people without a safe place to sleep who are forced into homelessness by this scheme.