Hundreds of criminals across England and Wales are being released early from prison today in the second round of releases aimed at tackling the “prison capacity crisis”. The controversial scheme, which includes both HMP Liverpool (Walton) and HMP Altcourse, will see some prisoners serving just a third of their sentence.
The scheme began on October 1, with around 700 eligible offenders leaving jail early — several of whom have already been rearrested. As a further 650 prisoners are scheduled to be released early today, questions arise over how the crisis developed.
Severe overcrowding across the prison estate
Prisons throughout the country, including HMP Liverpool and HMP Altcourse, have been severely overcrowded for a considerable number of years. As of the end of August, there were 86,843 prisoners behind bars across England and Wales — occupying almost 98% of usable capacity, and leaving fewer than 2,100 places for new arrivals.
That figure represents the absolute maximum the prison estate can safely accommodate — there are already considerably more inmates than the system was originally built to house, and this has been the case for some time. Nearly one in four prisoners — 23% — are living in overcrowded conditions, sharing cells that were designed for fewer occupants.
Overcrowding can trigger a host of difficulties, including reduced opportunities for rehabilitation through training, education and employment, longer periods spent confined to cells, and a rise in assaults and self-harm incidents.
Why the early release scheme was introduced now
Prison overcrowding is not a new crisis, but the government has made it abundantly clear that without the early release scheme going ahead, the country will exhaust its available cells entirely, and in the near future. It is forecast that the prison population could surpass the 100,000 mark by May 2030, while capacity is anticipated to increase only marginally by comparison.
Should prisons reach full capacity, the entire criminal justice system faces collapse — in a severe shortage, police and courts would find themselves unable to arrest and incarcerate dangerous criminals.
What triggered the crisis
A report by the Independent Sentencing Review last year found that since the turn of the century, successive UK governments have taken a “tough on crime” approach. This has prioritised punishment over rehabilitation — with both Labour and the Conservatives vying to appear the most hardline on criminals.
While crime has actually fallen since the mid-1990s, greater numbers of offenders are being handed custodial sentences and are serving lengthier terms behind bars. England and Wales now lock up more people per head of population than almost anywhere else in western Europe, second only to Poland.
On top of this, there has been a sharp rise in the number of offenders being recalled to prison after being released on licence. In the year to March 2026, more than 51,400 prisoners had their licence recalled — up 28% from the year before. By comparison, in 2000 the recall population stood at closer to just 9,000 inmates.
The rise comes after a previous early release programme that was launched in September 2024 as an emergency intervention to attempt to alleviate overcrowding, with prisons hitting 99% capacity. This saw eligible inmates serve just 40% of their sentence, rather than 50% — and while it proved effective in the short term, the steep increase in recalls restricted the overall impact.
Meanwhile, there has also been a rise in the number of defendants remanded in custody — those who have been arrested and are awaiting trial. The latest figure stands 68% higher than it was in 2019 — partly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the court backlog. Prisoners on remand now account for nearly 20% of the total prison population.
At the same time, attempts to expand prison capacity in recent years have been woefully inadequate to match rising demand. Ministry of Justice estimates reveal that while the last Conservative government did construct thousands of new prison places between 2010 and 2024, almost as many were shut down. It means fewer than 500 net places were actually created during that period — compared to more than 27,800 net prison places added over 13 years by the previous Labour government.
The current Labour government has committed to building 14,000 prison places by 2031, but even if that represents a net increase it still falls short of the amount that would be required if the early release programme does not proceed.
Will the early release scheme prove effective?
Clearly, action must be taken — simply maintaining the status quo is not viable. As demonstrated by the surge in licence recalls following the previous early release scheme in 2024, this kind of emergency intervention often serves as a temporary fix — inevitably short-term in nature. However, it should hopefully provide prisons with some much-needed breathing space while the government constructs additional capacity and identifies longer-term, systemic solutions.
The early release scheme represents just one element of the Sentencing Act 2026. Other significant reforms include reduced short prison stays, extended suspended sentences, earlier automatic release, stricter probation requirements and fixed recall limits. The changes limiting the use of short custodial sentences are particularly encouraging, as sentences of 12 months or less are associated with high reoffending rates. It means low-level, non-violent offenders, frequently grappling with untreated mental health problems, drug and alcohol dependency, poverty, and homelessness, remain caught in a 'revolving door' of incarceration.
Yet there are those who contend that even these reforms fall short of what is truly needed. A spokesperson for the Prison Reform Trust said: “The government was right to introduce the early release scheme. With prisons close to capacity, changes to release arrangements were expected to provide the single biggest reduction in pressure on the system, and there are no easy alternatives capable of delivering the same impact in the short term.
“However, the prison capacity crisis was decades in the making, and no single reform will solve it. The Sentencing Act is an important step towards a more sustainable approach, but further action will be needed.
“Alongside creating additional capacity, ministers should look at other drivers of prison population growth, including the rising recall population and pressures in the remand system. In the long term, the only sustainable answer is a justice system that reserves prison for the most serious cases, reverses decades of sentence inflation, and does more to reduce reoffending in the community.”
The Ministry of Justice's own research has established that community sentences are more successful at cutting reoffending rates compared to short custodial sentences — yet their use has nearly halved since 2012.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We inherited a justice system on the brink of collapse, but we’ve taken immediate action to fix it.
“We’re building 14,000 more prison places, imposing the toughest-ever controls on offenders, investing record sums in probation and victim support, and reforming the length of time people spend on recall to reduce the prison population. We will also deport thousands of foreign criminals and bring the injustice of IPP sentences to an end.”
