More than 25,000 prisoners will be released in the next year under an emergency plan announced by the Government today to ease chronic prison overcrowding in England and Wales.

Lord Falconer, the Justice Secretary, told the House of Lords that offenders serving terms of between four weeks and four years in prison would be eligible for release 18 days before their scheduled release date.

The Ministry of Justice said that an estimated 25,500 prisoners will be eligible for early release under the new rules within a year, freeing up an average of 1,200 prison places over that period. The system will come into effect next Friday, at which time between 1,500 and 1,800 prisoners will be freed.

Prisoners will only be granted an early release after a risk assessment in prison but those to be freed will include criminals such as burglars, fraudsters and drug-dealers.

Expert View

A huge increase in criminal offences since Labour came to power and hard-line rhetoric on law and order mean attempts to ease overcrowding have failed

Richard Ford

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Today's admission - confirming a report in The Times - represents a humiliating U-turn by Lord Falconer, as it comes only a month after he dismissed as "simply wrong" reports that he was considering releasing prisoners early because of a lack of space in jails.

In his statement, the Justice Secretary said that the Government's long-term plan to create 8,000 new prison places still stood, and added that an additional 1,500 places would be built on top of that using new Treasury funding. Work would start on building 500 of those places immediately, he added.

Probation officers and Opposition MPs sharply condemned the move, however, and said that the Government had been warned for years that Britain's jails were filling up dangerously.

"This is a temporary measure. Release on licence is not the same as executive release. Releasing people on licence means their sentence continues," Lord Falconer said.

"The criteria exclude offenders convicted of serious sexual or violent crimes, those who have broken the terms of temporary release in the past and foreign national prisoners who would be subject to deportation at the end of their sentence."

He added: "Whilst on licence the offender will remain the subject of his sentence and will be liable to recall."

The Justice Secretary said the guidance to prison governors to undertake the measure will come into effect on June 29.

The dramatic action comes as the jail population in England and Wales stands at 81,016, a new record, and close to absolute capacity. Some prisoners are being held in police or court cells, usually only used by officers to temporarily detain offenders, because there is nowhere else to put them. Lord Falconer said today that this situation would continue "until the end of the year at the latest".

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