Around 650 more prisoners in England and Wales are due to be released under the second tranche of the government's early release scheme. Under the scheme, eligible prisoners are released after serving a third of their total custodial sentence rather than after 40% or 50% of the term. People sentenced for manslaughter, rape, serious child sex and grooming offences are excluded.
This is not the first time a government - Conservative or Labour - has released prisoners early to make space in England and Wales' overcrowded prisons. BBC Verify has looked at the reasons why ministers say this latest scheme is necessary. The prison population in England and Wales on 12 October was 87,033, which was 97.8% of useable capacity, external.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has previously warned the prison population will overtake capacity as soon as this November. In the long-term the MoJ has projected that the capacity of all prisons will rise to around 99,000 by 2032 as a result of more prisons being built by this government. But it also projected that the prisoner population would rise to about 104,000 by 2032 if the Sentencing Act 2026 - which provides for earlier release - did not come into force.
That is why Justice Secretary Alex Norris says there is a "prison capacity crisis" which means the government has to implement the latest early release scheme. In total 4,500 prisoners are due to be released early by June 2027, external. About 700 offenders were released from jail early on 1 October - all of whom were serving terms of less than 19 months.
The MoJ has projected that the Sentencing Act will mean the prisoner population remains below the capacity of the prison system, rising only to around 96,000 by 2032. The England and Wales prison population has risen significantly in recent decades with a significant uptick starting in the 1990s before reaching a record high in 2024. The Institute for Government (IFG) think tank says this is partly the result of longer sentences.
In 2023, the average prison sentence at Crown Courts in England and Wales - which deal with more serious offences - was more than 25% longer than those handed down in 2012. For some crimes, the increase was greater. Sentences for robbery in 2023 were 13 months longer on average than in 2012 - an increase of 36%.
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