30/09/2026
Clive Hammond
Tomorrow (October 1), hundreds of prisoners will walk free as part of the expanded early release scheme (ERS), in the first wave of the Government’s controversial move to free up prison space.
Some 5,000 prisoners are scheduled to be released in stages over the next year, down from 6,000, after ministers intervened to exempt rapists and the most serious child sex offenders.
The plan to free up capacity in the overcrowded male prison estate comes as figures show the number of people behind bars has jumped by more than 1,700 in the past three months.
The prison population of England and Wales stood at 87,499 on Monday, according to weekly data published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
This is up from 85,761 on June 29 – a rise of 1,738, or two percent.
Ministers say the expanded early release scheme is needed to prevent the justice system from collapsing, after a summer when the issue dominated news headlines.
But Sara Crane, Vice President of the Police Superintendents’ Association (PSA), said tomorrow releases will be “deeply concerning for victims, their families and the communities affected by crime”.
In England and Wales, public confidence in the criminal justice system is “already fragile”, she noted, arguing that the “damage this will further cause, should be a clear signal on government to act”.
She said: “The dangerous under-funding of the criminal justice is now far beyond the point of red flags. Communities are being failed.
“The financial cost of early release will now fall heavily on policing. Forces will be expected to manage increased demand from offender monitoring, licence breaches, recalls, safeguarding concerns and further offending, whilst colleagues in the Probation Service face huge capacity crises. Policing leaders have estimated that the resulting cost on policing will equate to around £480 million in police time. Despite this data, the government has provided no additional funding to meet that demand.
“That is simply unacceptable. The cost is significant and without any appropriate additional funding in response, it will be absorbed by forces, police officers, police staff and ultimately the public. Other areas of policing will suffer, and as the visible agents of the criminal justice system, confidence in the police will drop. Every hour spent dealing with the consequences of this scheme is an hour that cannot be spent tackling neighbourhood crime, protecting vulnerable people or supporting victims.
Criminals will be excluded from the scheme if they have been jailed for a range of offences, including members of child grooming gangs convicted of indecent assault.
Prisoners guilty of manslaughter will also be excluded, meaning the killers of PC Andrew Harper, who died in the line of duty in 2019, will not be eligible.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham faced significant backlash for his initial plans to overhaul the scheme, which would have seen Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, who were convicted of Pc Harper’s manslaughter in 2020, eligible for early release from next year.
Justice Secretary Alex Norris has apologised to victims who faced a summer of uncertainty as the Government made a number of changes to the plans.
The expansion of the scheme is happening as a result of the 2026 Sentencing Act, which allows ministers to reduce the point at which certain prisoners can be freed from 40% of a fixed-term sentence to a third.
Several hundred people are likely to be released on October 1 as part of the first phase of the expanded scheme, with more to follow in subsequent months.
Ms Crane added: “Our members and their teams will continue to do everything necessary to keep communities safe, but they should not be expected to carry the burden of wider criminal justice system failures without the resources to do so. Policing has once again become the service that picks up the overspill when other parts of the system reach breaking point. We have no choice.
“We continue to call for a full review of the criminal justice system, including a Royal Commission. Police reform alone will not fix a system in which pressure is simply shifted from prisons to policing, while victims, communities and frontline services bear the consequences. It is critical that an independent review of the entire system takes place, which seeks to fully understand demand, capacity, accountability and the impact across all organisations as a result of policy decisions.
“The Government must deliver a fully-funded plan to restore confidence in criminal justice and ensure it delivers the outcomes the public deserve.”
The total prison population of England and Wales is now 1,022 below the record high of 88,521, which was reached on September 6 2024 in the wake of the public disorder that followed the Southport killings earlier that year.
The Government launched the early release scheme just four days later, on September 10 2024.
Images of prisoners celebrating their early release caused public anger in the following weeks.
Inmate Daniel Dowling-Brooks said “big up Keir Starmer” as he was picked up in a convoy of a white Bentley and black Mercedes G-Wagon outside HMP Swaleside in Kent in October 2024.
Another prisoner at the same jail was welcomed with an embrace as he was picked up in a black Rolls-Royce by a group of men in matching hoodies.
A total of 70,066 prisoners had been released under the scheme up to the end of March 2026, according to the latest MoJ data.
Prison numbers fell sharply in the weeks after the scheme was launched, but started climbing again in early 2025 and have since fluctuated mostly between 86,000 and 88,000.
The current scheme is not the first of its kind.
Under a separate process introduced by the previous Conservative government, 13,325 prisoners in England and Wales were freed early between October 17 2023 and September 9 2024.