MINISTERS are seeking emergency powers to allow the early release of thousands of prisoners in order to relieve overcrowding in jails, The Times has learnt.

Home Office officials have drafted legislation that would enable the Home Secretary to free inmates if the jail population spirals out of control.

It is the first time since the 1980s that such an option has been seriously considered by an administration.

It will be deeply embarrassing to John Reid as it comes just a week after the new Home Secretary announced that the Government wanted tougher jail sentences.

He said then: “People want serious crime treated seriously. We must make sure offenders don’t always have leniency on their side.”

There has been growing alarm in the Home Office about rising prisoner numbers, especially as the Government has no plans to build more jails.

New figures show that last Friday there were just 1,860 spaces left in the 139 jails in England and Wales. At present there are 77,640 prisoners.

One Whitehall source said: “We do not need this measure to deal with immediate worries over prison population. We need it as a safety valve in the medium term when there is concern about how prisons will manage.”

Under the proposals, known as administrative release, inmates serving short sentences of under a year would be freed early. At present 61,000 people each year are sentenced to less than 12 months in jail. Those released early would be supervised by the Probation Service or private security firms.

The legislation would be included in a Home Office Bill overhauling the Probation Service. The Bill was dropped but the Whitehall source told The Times last night: “We are still looking for a legislative vehicle. The clauses are ready.”

Treasury officials, however, were “amazed and astonished” when they saw how the Home Office was proposing to tackle the problem.

In 1987, 3,500 offenders were freed early when Douglas Hurd, then the Home Secretary, introduced an executive release scheme for offenders serving under 12 months.

His action came as the jail population in England and Wales headed towards 52,000, but Mr Reid is grappling with even worse figures.

Jails in London are bursting at the seams with offenders arriving from courts being locked out and then sent around the country to any prison with spare spaces. Emergency action has been taken to convert two women’s prisons into accommodation for men.

A new sentence in which inmates are given a short sharp shock of jail has also been delayed because of fears that this will cause a further surge in the prison population. Since arriving at the Home Office a month ago Mr Reid has ordered officials to look at every option for dealing with the prison number crisis including the financing, planning and building of new jails. But even if he launches a new prison building programme it would take five years or even longer before a new jail could be ready for offenders.

Last night Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: “There are still far too many people in prison who would arguably be more effectively punished and rehabilitated elsewhere.”

Richard Gardside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice studies at King’s College London, said: “There is a certain irony that at a time when the Government is proposing yet another mandatory sentence for knife offences, they are privately wrestling with the consequences of such a make-it-up-as-you-go-along policy agenda.”

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said that the administrative release of petty offenders into community supervision would improve public safety by freeing up prison staff to work with serious and violent offenders.

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