Prisoners' Release
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released earlier than originally scheduled as a result of capacity pressures since 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards
This Government inherited prisons days from collapse. We had no choice but to take decisive action to stop our prisons overflowing and keep the public safe.
Without the changes this Government made, courts would have had to halt trials and the police cancel arrests, undermining public safety and leading to a disastrous impact on public confidence in the criminal justice system.
We regularly publish data on release from prison, including on forms of early release – for example we publish SDS40 data alongside the quarterly Offender Management statistics: Standard Determinate Sentence (SDS40) release data - GOV.UK.
Whilst measures like the SDS40 change provided the intended medium-term relief to the system, this was only ever a temporary change as a bridge to a more sustainable solution. That is why the Sentencing Act has now been passed, to ensure we never run out of prison space again and to deliver a more sustainable solution to the prison capacity crisis.
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