5,000 early prison releases: six unions warn Burnham on law and order
Six of the biggest organisations representing staff in prisons, probation, policing and the courts have written jointly to Prime Minister Andy Burnham warning that the country is heading for what they describe as a total breakdown of law and order. Their letter says prisons, probation, police and courts can no longer perform the core functions needed to cut crime and keep the public safe.
The signatories include the Prison Officers Association, the National Association of Probation Officers and the Police Federation of England and Wales. They are joined by the heads of the University and College Union, the Public and Commercial Services Union and the Royal College of Nursing, whose members work inside prisons and across the wider criminal justice system.
What they are asking for is a Royal Commission, a full top-to-bottom review that would take evidence from judges, lawyers, frontline workers, prisoners and former prisoners. A commission of that kind was promised in the Conservative manifesto in 2019, according to the letter, but was never set up.
The leaders single out the early release scheme, which is expected to free up around 5,000 prison spaces in England and Wales. They argue it is a sticking plaster that is doomed to fail unless probation is first made fit for purpose, because people leaving jail without proper supervision and support simply come back through the same revolving door.
They are equally blunt about plans to restrict jury trials, a route floated by former Justice Secretary David Lammy to deal with the backlog of cases waiting to be heard. The letter calls that response dangerous and wrong-headed, and says the backlogs were caused mainly by spending cuts and the mass closure of courts under the last government.
The letter states that from arrest to trial, and from incarceration to release, the cycle of reoffending continues to spiral out of control, in part because rehabilitation is impossible in violent, squalid and overcrowded jails. It adds that ministers were warned about a ticking time bomb in the prison estate and that the response since has been piecemeal, timid and contradictory. Mark Fairhurst, national chair of the POA, said the entire system is in meltdown and that you cannot have justice on the cheap.
A government spokesman said it inherited a justice system on the brink of collapse and that action is already under way. The response points to 14,000 more prison places being built, work to cut court backlogs, what it calls the toughest ever controls on offenders, record sums going into probation and victim support, thousands more police officers in communities and the biggest reforms to policing in 200 years.
For most households none of this is abstract. It is whether a burglary or a car theft gets investigated, how long a victim waits for a court date, and whether someone released early is actually being supervised. The people who run these services are now saying openly that the money taken out over the past decade has left them unable to do the job, and that no amount of restructuring will fix it without funding to match.
