Prison population drops by more than 2,000 in one week after start of plan to tackle overcrowding

The prison population in England and Wales has fallen by more than 2,000 people in just one week, after the start of a government plan to reduce overcrowding.

A temporary early release scheme came into effect on Tuesday 10 September, with the aim to release around 1,750 prisoners after serving 40 per cent of their sentence, rather than the usual 50 per cent.

Tuesday's cohort of early leavers were those with jail terms of less than five years.

On 22 October it will be the turn of those with sentences of five years or more - but the government insists it won't apply to most serious offenders such as killers, rapists and terrorists.

Last Friday, the prison population was 88, 521.

Today the figure has fallen by 2,188, to 86,333.

The release scheme is being done to create space in the country's overcrowded prisons.

Ministers blame the legacy they inherited from the previous Conservative government, saying to do nothing was "unthinkable" and would have led to a "total collapse of the criminal justice system".

However, concerns have been raised about safety and whether prisoners are sufficiently rehabilitated to be back on the streets.

Earlier this week, HMP Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said prisons are in danger of becoming a "revolving door" because prisoners are not "doing the work they need to do in order to go out and be successful when they leave prison".

He told Sky News: "It's a risky time with so many prisoners coming out at the same time.

"Normally, there are about 1,000 prisoners coming out a week. Most of those 1,000 prisoners will still come out this week.

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"But on top of that, we've got 1,700 other prisoners, and then in October, we have another tranche of around 2,000 coming out as well, inevitably, that puts some risks into local communities and greater strain on already stretched probation services."

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