Hundreds of prisoners are due to walk free from jail on Thursday in the first wave of Andy Burnham's controversial expanded early release scheme. Some 5,000 prisoners are scheduled to be released in stages over the next year, down from 6,000, after ministers intervened to exempt rapists and the most serious child sex offenders.
Prison population rises
The plan to free up capacity in the overcrowded male prison estate comes as figures show the number of people behind bars has jumped by more than 1,700 in the past three months. The prison population of England and Wales stood at 87,499 on Monday, according to weekly data published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
This is up from 85,761 on June 29 – a rise of 1,738, or 2%. Ministers say the expanded early release scheme is needed to prevent the justice system from collapsing, after a summer when the issue dominated news headlines.
Exclusions and backlash
Criminals will be excluded from the scheme if they have been jailed for a range of offences, including members of child grooming gangs convicted of indecent assault. Prisoners guilty of manslaughter will also be excluded, meaning the killers of Pc Andrew Harper, who died in the line of duty in 2019, will not be eligible.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham faced significant backlash for his initial plans to overhaul the scheme, which would have seen Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, who were convicted of Pc Harper’s manslaughter in 2020, eligible for early release from next year. Justice Secretary Alex Norris has apologised to victims who faced a summer of uncertainty as the Government made a number of changes to the plans.
Legal basis and impact
The expansion of the scheme is happening as a result of the 2026 Sentencing Act, which allows ministers to reduce the point at which certain prisoners can be freed from 40% of a fixed-term sentence to a third. Several hundred people are likely to be released on October 1 as part of the first phase of the expanded scheme, with more to follow in subsequent months.
The total prison population of England and Wales is now 1,022 below the record high of 88,521, which was reached on September 6 2024 in the wake of the public disorder that followed the Southport killings earlier that year. The Government launched the early release scheme just four days later, on September 10 2024.
Images of prisoners celebrating their early release caused public anger in the following weeks. Inmate Daniel Dowling-Brooks said “big up Keir Starmer” as he was picked up in a convoy of a white Bentley and black Mercedes G-Wagon outside HMP Swaleside in Kent in October 2024. Another prisoner at the same jail was welcomed with an embrace as he was picked up in a black Rolls-Royce by a group of men in matching hoodies.
A total of 70,066 prisoners had been released under the scheme up to the end of March 2026, according to the latest MoJ data. Prison numbers fell sharply in the weeks after the scheme was launched, but started climbing again in early 2025 and have since fluctuated mostly between 86,000 and 88,000.
The current scheme is not the first of its kind. Under a separate process introduced by the previous Conservative government, 13,325 prisoners in England and Wales were freed early between October 17 2023 and September 9 2024.
