Partisan defence or criticism aside, the UK's prison system is failing. The severe overcrowding, understaffing and underfunding have come together to induce a crisis. By this January, the number of prisoners in the system had doubled compared with 30 years ago, despite crime rates falling consistently. We are incarcerating more people, for longer, for smaller crimes.
However you feel about criminals, I would argue that there is consensus that their rights and living conditions should meet basic standards. Twenty thousand convicts live in overcrowded conditions, many sharing cells designed for one person. This 'warehousing' of people does not contribute to rehabilitation. The system failure leads many prisoners to spend up to 22 hours a day locked in their cell. This is unequivocally unethical in terms of the psychological effects on often young, misguided men, but also prevents any form of rehabilitation program from being implemented. This is no light situation - in 2018-19, 86% of prisoners were rated as being of concern or serious concern of incidents of self-harm and prisoner-on-prisoner assault. These conditions are not livable.
Labour's early release scheme reduces the proportion of sentences that must be served in prison (i.e. the amount of time spent incarcerated before a prisoner can be considered for early release) from 50% to 40%. Sentences for serious violent offences, (four or more years) sex offences, and crimes related to domestic abuse will not be considered for the scheme. In total, 5,500 prisoners are slated for early release out of a prison population of almost 90000, under terms of strict probation and monitoring (including curfews and electric tagging).
First and foremost, this system is temporary. Labour is not addressing the issue because they think violent criminals should be loosed into the community, but out of sheer necessity because prisons have steadily lost capacity for decades, and alternatives are hard to identify. There is no political, legal and economically viable way for the government to improve facilities, let alone bring in new conditions with capacity for rehabilitation of violent criminals. The prison system is a bubbling pot waiting to boil over, and the scheme will only turn down the heat; Labour is buying time to make the radical reform needed to actually save our system. It is a short-term alleviation of dramatic pressure.
The safety concerns over the early release. of criminals are outweighed by the long-term societal safety supported by a functioning prison system. Early releases allow for community oriented rehabilitation, with an emphasis on civil responsibility and genuine care for those around one, which absolutely cannot be achieved within a prison facility. Recidivism rates are high, of course, which my colleague Yasser will argue undermines the scheme. In fact, the 75% rate, one of the highest in the developed world, instead goes to show the dire need for prison reform which is geared towards rehabilitation and reintegration schemes after release. This would have the potential to bring about lower overall crime, better ethical implications and, as I'll go on to explain, stronger prioritisation of dangerous criminals in the justice system. There is no world in which locking a young man (95% of prisoners are male) in a small, cramped tin box with other, possibly violent offenders is going to bring about, on the other side of the sentence, an active, upstanding and rehabilitated member of society - we have to give communities the chance to bring people back "onside".
Finally, as I've mentioned, this over-pressured system prevents police from dealing not just with petty and short sentence crimes, but severe rapes, murders, and other hard acts of violence. The scheme will allow the proper rehabilitation for, and retribution required from these significantly more noteworthy criminals. Presently, we are having to release much more violent criminals after shorter proportions of their sentences to free up space, but this could change to leave those who have committed worse crimes in prison for longer, and release those who have not sooner.
While an idealist might say that an imperfect solution for I make no claims that releasing prisoners early is a flawless plan – is not adequate, or a skeptic might comment on the uncertainty of the proposal, I must remind you all; this is the only viable solution to a problem which must be solved immediately. To undermine Labour's choice, you would have to provide another solution which could take effect straight away, without causing undue safety concern and take effect only for as long as is necessary (in the sense that Labour can stop the releases whenever they wish). It would also need to appease the entirety of the Parliamentary Labour Party - I'll leave you to come up with another policy that fits the bill.
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