Labour vows to address prison overcrowding crisis with new measures

Labour has refused to rule out continuing the Government’s early release scheme for prisoners to tackle the overcrowding crisis in jails. Despite criticising the plan to release prisoners up to 70 days early, Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary, said she could not rule in or out any measure until she knew the true extent of the crisis in prisons. The Ministry of Justice has refused to disclose how many prisoners had been freed early since the scheme was introduced last year but Ms Mahmood pledged Labour would publish the figures if it won the election and formed the next government. It will mean the next justice secretary will have to decide whether to increase it to 80 days – which officials say is likely to have a limited effect – or choose a more radical option to release thousands of prisoners early by changing the law to free them 43 per cent of the way through their sentence rather than halfway. Labour has pledged to deliver 14,000 new prison places to tackle the overcrowding crisis if it gets into government. The party has announced plans to unblock the planning system in order to expand the prison estate and ease capacity. Prisoners have been let out of jail early in recent months as part of emergency measures to tackle a chronic shortage of spaces. The Tories previously promised to deliver 20,000 new prison places by the mid 2020s but only 6,000 have been created so far. Shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "The crisis in our prisons is a powder keg waiting to explode. "The dangerous overcrowding of our prisons was foreseeable and avoidable, but this government has not had the will or courage to act." She added: "We will build the prison places they promised but never delivered and we will drive down reoffending."