Labour Has Two Choices: Fund More Prisons Or Free Up Cells

The lack of space in our prisons has reached critical mass. As such, many people who judges and juries have ruled should be kept away from the public will be let loose.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Some will use their unexpected freedom to re-offend – although the worst of the convict population won’t be let out under the new emergency rules on early release. There will be an outcry, calls for a public inquiry, questions in parliament. Labour will no doubt be labelled “soft on crime” by Conservatives who actually created the problem, and who refused to face up to the tough choices required to ameliorate it.

The most unscrupulous of what is now the official opposition will present it as the first active choice by the new Labour administration: to release muggers and rapists onto the streets to create mayhem – as if they were doing it for fun. In reality, it is the last thing the new justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, wants to do. That’s politics, of course – but it shows just how distorted and toxic the debate on law and order has become.

For all practical purposes, Britain’s jails are full (as well as filthy and unsafe). Keir Starmer says he is “shocked” by the crisis. So he should be. Earlier release of criminals convicted of less serious offences is the only way to ensure that those now accused of murder, rape and other violent assault and going through the court system can be detained after their conviction. For Mahmood, there is no alternative – but that won’t protect her from attack.

In fact, as was widely reported back in March, then justice secretary Alex Chalk was preparing just such a plan to deal with the crisis. Now, having lost his job and parliamentary seat, he tells us via a BBC podcast that his plan was blocked by Rishi Sunak.