UK: We were forced to release thousands of murderers and rapists early due to prison overcrowding

UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she had no choice but to include murderers and sex offenders convicted of crimes against children in the early release program, due to prisons facing the risk of running out of space to accommodate inmates. Mahmood defended her decision to include perpetrators of violent and sexual crimes in the early release scheme, noting that the prison system was on the brink of collapse, which forced her to make “unpalatable” decisions. She added that efforts to address the prison overcrowding crisis had created sufficient capacity to exclude certain categories of convicted offenders from the program. Under the scheme, 6,000 prisoners, including murderers, sex offenders, and those convicted of violent crimes, were scheduled for release from September, after serving half of their sentences instead of two-thirds, or in some cases one-third instead of 40%. An initial assessment conducted by Andy Burnham prevented around 1,000 rapists and sex offenders from benefiting from early release, and also delayed the launch of the program until October. The UK prime minister pledged to do everything in his power to prevent the early release of two murderers of police officer Andrew Harper, after the Daily Telegraph revealed that they were eligible for the program. This could also prevent hundreds of other inmates convicted of manslaughter from being released early.