Nearly 40,000 inmates have been released early under the Government's emergency scheme to tackle prison overcrowding, official figures show. Some 38,042 prisoners had been freed as of the end of June, the Ministry of Justice confirmed. The scheme, launched in September last year, allows eligible inmates to be released after serving 40% of their fixed-term sentence instead of the usual 50%.
The early release programme was introduced just days after the prison population hit a record high of 88,521. Of those freed, 28.6% were serving sentences of six months or under, while 13.8% were serving between six and 12 months. The largest proportion by age were 30 to 39-year-olds, accounting for 37.6% of the total.
Foreign nationals made up 9.6% of early releases, with 3,644 inmates from other countries. The remaining 90.2% were British nationals, and 0.2% had no nationality recorded. HMP Humber in Brough released the highest number of inmates (1,126), followed by Berwyn in Wrexham, Fosse Way in Leicester, and Parc B in Bridgend.
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the Government took “decisive action to stop our prisons from collapsing” after inheriting a system “in crisis”. She stressed that offenders released on licence face strict conditions and can be recalled to prison if they break the rules.
The early release scheme replaced a separate one introduced by the previous Conservative government, under which 13,325 prisoners were freed between October 2023 and September 2024. Meanwhile, recalls to custody have risen sharply, with 11,041 in April to June 2025, up 13% on the same period last year and 62% on 2023. The Ministry of Justice described the level as “historically high” and linked it to the early release scheme.
New legislation, the Sentencing Bill, was introduced in September to address the long-term capacity crisis. It includes a Texas-style earned release scheme and plans to build 14,000 new prison places by 2031. Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said the recent accidental release of a migrant sex offender was symptomatic of “chaos” in the system, but hoped the new changes would resolve the problems.
