Sir Keir Starmer has admitted he will almost certainly have to keep releasing prisoners early if elected Prime Minister amid fears jails will run out of space within days of the election.
The Labour leader conceded that ‘in all likelihood’ the policy being pursued by the current government would remain in place.
Britain’s prison estate is severely overcrowded and numerous recent inspections have warned of dangerous conditions within jails due to staffing issues, endemic violence and widespread drug use.
Sir Keir told the BBC: ‘It simply wouldn’t be realistic for me to say, ”the prisons are overcrowded on Thursday at 10 o’clock but somehow I’ve magicked up a new prison on Friday morning” – that isn’t going to happen.’
When asked about prison overcrowding, he said: ‘This has got to be a problem we’ll inherit if we are privileged to come in to serve and I’m not going to sit here and pretend to you that I can build a prison on the first day of the Labour government.
Sir Keir Starmer – seen yesterday on the campaign trail – has conceded he will have to continue releasing prisoners early
‘There has been an absolute failure on prison building – half the money that was allocated hasn’t been spent, and we haven’t got enough prison places.’
‘I have to say it’s shocking to have to inherit a problem like that, that our criminal justice system has gotten to a point where we’re releasing prisoners who should be in prison early and giving instructions to the police not to arrest in certain cases.
‘That is how broken the system [is] – got to pick that up and start the fix, but also not just fix but renew and take forward.’
His comments come after prison governors warned jails could run out of space within days, putting the public in danger.
The Prison Governors’ Association (PGA), which represents more than 95% of all prison governors and managers working in England and Wales, said the entire criminal justice system ‘stands on the precipice of failure’ as it called on the next government to tackle problems ‘without delay’.
The association believes there is ‘no other option open’ to government than to release more prisoners early to grip the ‘crisis’, adding: ‘An uncrowded prison system should have no more than about 78,000 people in custody.’
As of Friday, the prison population stood at 87,360 with a ‘usable operational capacity’ of 88,818, indicating almost 1,500 spaces are available.
This does not include about 1,350 other cell spaces which are always kept free as a contingency measure, so prisons have the capacity to operate safely and respond to any urgent or unforeseen circumstances.
In an interview today, PGA president Tom Wheatley warned prisons would face ‘operational breaking point’ – where they can no longer safely accept more inmates – within ‘a week or two’ of the election’.
‘The government has known about this for ages,’ he told the Financial Times. There are things they could have done, and didn’t, right up until the election was called.
‘They made it inevitable that someone else would have to make very difficult decisions.’
A file photo of HMP Wandsworth in south-west London, which recently hit headlines after a prison officer was filmed allegedly having sex with an inmate
Sir Keir told the BBC : ‘It simply wouldn’t be realistic for me to say, ”the prisons are overcrowded on Thursday at 10 o’clock but somehow I’ve magicked up a new prison on Friday morning” – that isn’t going to happen’
The Government has expanded a scheme which allows some inmates to be released from jail up to 70 days early, in a bid to free up prison cells, but concerns have been raised that dangerous criminals could end up being eligible.
Officials insist offenders will continue to be supervised under strict conditions and say anyone jailed for a serious violent, terror or sexual offence will not be eligible.
The letter followed a threat from the prison officers’ union last month that it could take the Government to court if overcrowding in jails gets worse.
The POA has repeatedly raised fears prisons could be full by early July, and said it may launch a legal challenge under health and safety laws if safe capacity levels are breached because guards have ‘no right to strike’ in England and Wales.
In a report published earlier this year, Whitehall’s spending watchdog found overcrowding in prisons is now ‘one of the biggest obstacles’ to cutting the courts backlog.
The Government’s target of cutting the crown court backlog to 53,000 by March 2025 is ‘no longer achievable’, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
The Ministry of Justice is building six new prisons to create an extra 20,000 places as demand grows for cell spaces, partially because of the Government’s recruitment campaign to hire 20,000 more police officers.
About 6,000 spaces have been created already and about 10,000 will be built by the end of 2025.
Failures in Britain’s jails were recently thrust into the spotlight after a video emerged of a prison officer allegedly having sex with an inmate at HMP Wandsworth.
