Fixing the pipeline

This article was first published in The Critic.

Who’s ready for tranche 3? We don’t know exactly when the Government plans to release the next batch of criminals from prison early, but it must be soon judging by the ten mass releases they have planned over the next few months. 

Over the past few weeks, the public has been treated to two of these events, each resulting in a day of rolling coverage of convicts celebrating, promptly reoffending and in some cases being rearrested again. Files from the Ministry of Justice suggest around 650 people are due to be released next, on top of the 1,350 already let out in October so far. 

Some of these men are already back in prison. Last weekend, Greater Manchester Police arrested eight men days within days of release. Many more are expected to end up in similar positions, and it remains somewhat surprising that the Prime Minister is prepared to burn large amounts of public goodwill for relatively little to show in return. 

Unsurprisingly, none of this is conducive to public confidence in the state. According to recent polling, two-thirds of the public oppose early releases of any kind. There is also visceral opposition to reducing the amount of time serious violent offenders spend serving their sentence in custody, though unfortunately for the public these changes have been baked into law under the Sentencing Act 2026. 

Violent criminals who previously had to serve at least two-thirds of their sentence behind bars can now be released having just served half their sentence in prison. It turns out that the public prefer building more prisons and deporting foreign nationals, two recommendations I made in a recent Prosperity Institute report on the capacity crisis.

While the public is understandably outraged, it is worth monitoring the growing discontent from within the criminal justice system itself – notably from the police. The constabulary can’t have been thrilled at the prospect of managing more offenders outside of custody, but it was the prospect of the killers of PC Andrew Harper being included in those released that especially drew their ire. 

At trial in 2020, Harper’s killers were acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter and each received sentences ranging from 13 to 16 years. Under the changes in the law, it became apparent that they would be eligible for release this year. There is a cruel irony in the fact that they might be spared from ‘Harper’s Law’, a measured passed by the previous government extending mandatory life sentences to anyone who commits the manslaughter of an emergency worker on duty. 

Police responded to the news with widespread anger. Over the summer, a group of fifty chief constables and senior members of law enforcement wrote an open letter to Andy Burnham warning that the release of Harper’s killers would seriously damage police morale and undermine confidence in the justice system. The police also lobbied for additional public protection safeguards when considering the release of serious offenders. 

Other forces went further. Thames Valley Police threatened joint legal action with the Police Federation, resorting to that favoured method of waging intra-bureaucratic conflict: judicial review. 

Ultimately, the challenge was moot. Police upset clearly contributed to the public sense of injustice, culminating in a public petition opposing the release of Harper’s killers that garnered over a million signatures. Under public pressure and press scrutiny, Burnham caved and amended the release policy to exclude exemptions for manslaughter. 

Emboldened by their victory, the police have joined the growing number of uniformed services commenting on political matters. Speaking days after the policy came into force, the Met Commissioner Mark Rowley took to the airwaves to warn that almost half of all tags used to track released offenders were not fitted on time, and that the system was becoming a ‘revolving door’ for offenders. 

At the same time a leaked letter from DCS Luke Williams, a North London Borough Commander, to local officials contained a somewhat extraordinary appeal for help. Detailing what appears to be the case of Michael Bogle, a recently released high-risk offender who went on a weekend long crime-spree in the area, the letter lists the amount of additional police time and resources that were required to deal with Bogle. 

Noting that pressures resulting from more criminals on the streets cannot “simply be transferred onto policing with no recognition”, it also warns that it is “disheartening for officers to repeatedly arrest the same offenders, only to see them released back into the community and reoffending again.”  

None of this is helped by a probation system which, even prior to the waves of early release begun by Starmer immediately after the 2024 general election, was on the ropes. The service faces a vacancy rate of over 20% for core officer positions, severely reducing the number of offenders they can effectively monitor. This sits alongside official estimates of a staff shortfall of 10,000, which would be required to safely handle sentence management. 

Police morale and retention are already in a perilous state. As another recent Prosperity Institute paper detailed, although serious crime has decreased over the past few decades, the low-level crime and disorder which wears down bobbies on the beat has become rampant and police have been deprived of the powers and practices which could best curtail this. The annual National Workforce and Wellbeing Survey for policing in England and Wales this year found that 45 per cent of officers regularly feel burnt out, and around a third say they may leave policing within the next year. The most recent workforce figures back this up: in the year ending 31st March 2026, 566 more officers left the force than joined across England and Wales. 

Over the past few months, the police have been making their attitude towards early prison releases known, often with a significant level of publicity. With seven mass release events still to come, we can only expect to hear their voices grow louder and angrier.