--- title: "Britain frees thousands of prisoners early as jails run near capacity" description: "The releases begin Thursday, and the probation officers’ union warns the service meant to monitor them is near “meltdown”" author: "rews desk" published: 2026-09-30T04:00:29.911Z modified: 2026-09-30T06:14:04Z url: https://rews.cc/a/britain-frees-thousands-of-prisoners-early-as-jails-run-near-730562 language: en tags: ["prisons", "crime", "politics", "burnham", "sentencing", "us", "europe"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Britain frees thousands of prisoners early as jails run near capacity *The releases begin Thursday, and the probation officers’ union warns the service meant to monitor them is near “meltdown”* By rews desk · September 30, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/britain-frees-thousands-of-prisoners-early-as-jails-run-near-730562 ## In brief - Thousands of prisoners in England and Wales will be released early starting Thursday - Prisons ran at 97-98% capacity last month and were projected to fill by November without action - Those convicted of manslaughter, death by dangerous driving and historic child sex offences were excluded after protests - The probation union NAPO voted in August in favour of possible strike action over pay and workloads - A record 262 prisoners were released in error from April 2024 to March 2025, an increase of 128% Thousands of prisoners in England and Wales will be released early from Thursday as the government seeks to stop an overcrowded prison system from running out of space within weeks. Government figures show prisons ran at between 97% and 98% capacity last month and will fill by November without urgent action. “You’re running the whole system hot, and that means there is no room for error,” Pia Sinha, a former prison governor who now leads the Prison Reform Trust charity, told CNN. The reforms, passed under former prime minister Keir Starmer, let adults convicted of less serious offences leave prison after a third of their sentence, rather than 40% or halfway through, and others after half, rather than two-thirds. Those freed serve the rest on licence, equivalent to parole, and the most serious offenders are excluded. The public backlash has been the first political test for newly installed Prime Minister Andy Burnham, according to CNN. Burnham excluded anyone convicted of manslaughter, death by dangerous driving and historic child sex offences from early release after victims’ families protested, CNN reported. Debbie Adlam, whose son, police constable Andrew Harper, was killed in 2019 when he became entangled in a tow strap and was dragged more than a mile while trying to stop a quad bike theft, told the Telegraph in July that the news made her feel “sick” and that “Andrew’s life doesn’t get to come back.” Three men were convicted of manslaughter over his death; the driver received 16 years and the other two 13 years, terms that under the original rules could have seen the pair released within months. “We’ve heard from victims who’ve become very unwell as a result of hearing that news,” said Claire Waxman, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales. “(They are) not able to work, struggling to live their life.” She warned the scheme could accelerate “victim attrition,” in which victims withdraw support for prosecutions. “We’re now hearing from victims saying ‘What is the point?’” she said. The pressure now shifts to the probation service, to which the government has promised £700 million (about $925 million) and thousands of new officers. “Probation is heading for a complete meltdown,” Ian Lawrence, general secretary of the NAPO union, told CNN. Members voted overwhelmingly in August in favour of possible strike action over pay and workloads. “Sickness is at all-time high,” he said, adding that 60% of those off sick are suffering from burnout. New recruits, he said, will need time to learn the job. ## A crisis decades in the making The prison population has doubled in 30 years, according to the Institute for Government think tank, even as crime rates fell over the past decade. The Sentencing Council says average minimum terms for murder rose from 13 years in 2000 to 21 in 2021, and average custodial sentences from 13 months in 2005 to 21 months in 2023. Five of the most senior former judges in England and Wales wrote in 2024 that “there is nothing which justifies this doubling of sentence lengths.” Between 2010 and 2024, as Conservative governments cut public spending, the system added just 500 net prison places. The Covid-19 pandemic created court backlogs that keep more inmates on remand, more offenders are recalled to prison for breaching parole terms, and new building programmes will take years to complete. Between April 2024 and March 2025, 262 prisoners were released in error in England and Wales — the highest number on record and a 128% increase on the previous year. Overcrowding keeps prisoners in their cells longer, with less access to rehabilitation and rising violence against staff, Sinha said, and leaves no room to repair Victorian-era prisons. As governor of HMP Liverpool from 2017 to 2020 she could reduce inmate numbers to rebuild the prison “wing by wing,” she recalled. “In 2017, you would call yourself overcrowded if you were 80% (capacity). It’s now 98%.” The early releases begin on Thursday, with probation officers monitoring the freed offenders in the community. NAPO’s members have yet to set strike dates, but Lawrence said their workload would rise further with each release.