Shabana Mahmood will restrict how lengthy lots of of repeat offenders may be returned to jail for amid Whitehall predictions that jails can be full once more in November.
The justice secretary additionally introduced a £4.7bn plan to construct three new prisons beginning this yr, a part of a “record expansion” as the federal government makes an attempt to become familiar with the felony justice system.
Senior Tories accused Mahmood of failing to punish criminals, sarcastically saying repeat offenders could be “quaking in their boots”.
In an alarming message delivered at a Downing Avenue press convention, Mahmood warned that prisons have been 99% full, including: “If we don’t do anything now, we risk a total breakdown in law and order.”
There could be a shake-up of “prison recall” system to permit some prisoners to be returned to jail for less than a set 28-day interval in the event that they breached their licence circumstances, she mentioned.
“It is shameful that this country in 2025 finds itself in this cycle of crisis. It is shameful that for so long, the last Conservative government failed to reckon with the reality of a rising prison population,” she mentioned.
The brand new recall measures are anticipated to unencumber about 1,400 locations, Mahmood indicated. They are going to apply to offenders who have been sentenced to between one and 4 years and have been let loose on licence however commit one other offence.
Requested how many individuals could be launched on account of the fixed-term measures, Mahmood mentioned: “We believe that that number will allow us to get from November into spring of next year … we are on track to hit zero capacity within our prison estate by November, and this measure will tide us over until any changes from the sentencing review start to hit the system.”
An ordinary recall at the moment ends in offenders being taken again to jail for the rest of their sentence, however this may be for shorter fastened phrases in some circumstances.
The newest measures are geared toward coping with the dimensions of the persevering with disaster in prisons, as the newest weekly jail inhabitants in England and Wales stands at 88,087.
That is 434 under the final peak within the jail inhabitants of 88,521 inmates on 6 September, recorded simply earlier than the federal government started releasing 1000’s of prisoners early as a part of efforts to curb jail overcrowding.
The three prisons can be constructed close to present prisons, Mahmood mentioned together with “breaking ground” on a web site close to HMP Gartree in Leicestershire “later this year”.
Officers mentioned the others could be close to HMP Garth close to Leyland, Lancashire, and HMP Grendon within the village of Grendon Underwood, Buckinghamshire.
She warned that regardless of “record prison expansion”, England and Wales would nonetheless be greater than 9,000 jail locations brief by 2028.
The recall inhabitants in prisons has “more than doubled” in seven years, she mentioned, as she set out the newest measure to ease jail capability.
Some can be excluded from the scheme, “including any offender who has been recalled for committing a serious further offence”, mentioned Mahmood.
Amy Rees, the MoJ’s interim everlasting secretary, mentioned the federal government would “run out of prison places in just five months’ time”, if additional measures weren’t taken.
“On our current trajectory, the prison population rises by 3,000, and now we expect to hit zero capacity, to entirely run out of prison places for adult men, in November of this year,” she mentioned.
The announcement got here earlier than a bundle of jail overcrowding measures to be really useful subsequent week by an unbiased sentencing overview.
Led by the previous Tory justice secretary David Gauke, it’ll say that prisoners will be capable to earn their freedom after serving a 3rd of their sentences below new minimal and most sentence plans.
Offenders in England and Wales will be capable to earn early launch in the event that they full work, coaching or training assignments and show good behaviour.
Gauke is predicted to assist the additional rollout of specialist courts to interrupt addictions of prolific offenders. Intensive supervision courts have been arrange for feminine offenders in three pilots throughout England and Wales.
Adjustments from a sentencing invoice could be anticipated to begin having an impact in April subsequent yr, Mahmood mentioned.
“We will legislate at pace. And as I described earlier, currently we’re on track to come down to zero capacity in November of this year,” she mentioned.
“That’s why I’ve announced the measures on fixed-term recall today, we would anticipate that any changes from a sentencing bill could start having an impact on April of next year, so that’s the timeline that we are working to.
“We’re moving very, very quickly, but it’s because we want to make sure we never have to do emergency releases again.”
Posting on X, the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, mentioned: “Labour are so obsessed with working from home, they want to roll it out to prisoners too. Criminals will be quaking in their boots.”
