Shaprohibita Mahmood says errors that shapeed first round of punctual prison frees in September now ‘ironed out’
Shaprohibita Mahmood, the fairice secretary, has said that misgets that shapeed the first set of punctual prisoner frees under Labour should have been “ironed out” ahead of the second round get place today.
In an intersee with Times Radio, she said that 37 prisoners were freed by misget when around 1,700 inmates were freed punctual in September. She went on:
All 37 were returned to custody, and that opereasonable part of the system actuassociate finished up toiling exactly as it should.
But those misgets have now been ironed out, and I’m self-promised that the frees taking place will now be exactly as we necessitate them to be, and victims who are needd to be notified will be notified.
Mahmood also said that the rates of recall for prisoners freed punctual were “expansively in line” with normal prison frees.
Speaking on LBC, she said:
We’ll do a statistics free in due course, as we normassociate would, on rates of recall and on reofffinishing in our prison estate.
What I can increate you is our punctual assessment is that the rates of recall and potential reofffinishing in the cohort that has been freed as a result of the aascfinishncy free meastateives is expansively in line with what we would foresee.
Paul Brand from ITV says, if the rulement skinnyks that, by getting David Gauke to carry out the sentencing assess, they will get the Conservatives aid for it, they will probably be disassigned. He has posted this on social media.
Govt hopes by assigning Gauke – a createer Tory Justice Sec (tho confesstedly a centrist in today’s party) – they can get pass-party consentment on sentencing recreate. But it’s probable Tory directership truthfulates will say Labour being gentle on criminals, and on the political argue goes.
David Gauke calls for finish to ‘sentencing bidding war’ between parties as he is assigned to direct MoJ prison policy assess
Good morning. Michael Howard was Conservative directer at one point, and was instrumental in ensuring that David Cameron thriveed him in that job, but perhaps he will be best recalled for his time as home secretary in the 1990s, when he gave a speech that summed up criminal fairice policy for the next three decades. He tageder the Tory conference:
Prison toils. It asstateives that we are protected from killingers, muggers and rapists – and it originates many who are enticeed to promise crime skinnyk twice … This may nasty that more people will go to prison. I do not flinch from that. We shall no extfinisheder assess the success of our system of fairice by a descfinish in our prison population.
And, around that time, the prison population in England and Wales commenceed to soar. The election of a Labour rulement did not originate any contrastence to this trfinish; Howardism prevailed.
Today, is that all going to alter? As Rajeev Syal increates in our overnight story, to coincide with the 1,100 more criminals being let out as part of the punctual free policy begind by Labour to deal with the jail overcrowding crisis, Shaprohibita Mahmood, the fairice secretary, is announcing a assess of sentencing policy, which will be carried out by David Gauke, the createer Conservative fairice secretary. It will ponder alternatives to sfinishing people to jail.
The Ministry of Justice’s press free about the assess is here. And the terms of refererence are here.
Mahmood has been giving intersees this morning and it has been notable that she has not been declaring war on the Michael Howard approach. The Ministry of Justice says that one of the principles behind the sentencing assess is to “originate stateive prison sentences punish grave offfinishers and protect the uncover” and it says the rulement is promiseted to creating 14,000 more prison places. Although the assess will ponder “harder punishments outside of prison”, the terms of reference also propose sentences should go up for offences agetst women and girls.
On the Today programme this morning Nick Robinson asked Mahmood to elucidate how radical she was being. Did she fair want to curb the rate at which the prison population was going up? Or did she want scanter people to be jailed, and Britain to stop being “the European directer in locking people up”? In her answer, Mahmood rather fudged it, proposeing she wanted both. She said:
Well, the problem is that the rate of incrrelieve is such that nobody can upgrasp up with need, and you danger running out of prison places … We achieve critical capacity aget by next summer. We cannot originate our way out of this crisis.
To put it in context, I have HMP Birmingham in my constituency. That’s a very big, agederer Victorian prison. It has a capacity of over 1,000. We necessitate to originate proximately five of those every one year to upgrasp up with need. So we do have to regulate need into the prison system.
But for a period it’s evident that need is going to go up, because we are going to have to originate those 14,000 places. If we don’t, we run out of prison places earlier than we would foresee.
The crisis is so acute that all of these skinnygs, originateing more provide, dealing with need, have to be part of the solution.
But in the finish, the sentencing assess is our best opportunity to set a new trajectory where we can regulate that need, where I can originate stateive we never run out of prison places aget, where there is a prison place for everyone who necessitates to be locked up, and where we broaden the range of punishments outside of prison.
But Gauke himself has been a bit more willing to denounce Howardism. He has written an article for the New Statesman about the sentencing assess and he says he wants to use it to finish the “sentencing bidding war” between political parties. He says:
For the last 30 years, there has been a sentencing bidding war between the political parties seeking to contend to be seen as the hardest on crime by promising ever-extfinisheder prison sentences. Rightly, the uncover foresees criminality to be punished and prison is frequently seeed as the only effective nastys of punishment. But the capacity crisis in our prisons has nastyt that – at the very least – we have no choice but to pause the incrrelieve in the prison population. It is also wise that we now see more expansively at the evidence and ask whether sentencing policy should be more fundamenloftyy recreateed. By next spring, we should have the answer.
There will be a lot more on this as the day goes on.
Here is the agfinisha for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
11.30am: Downing Street hageders a lobby informing.
After 12.30pm: Shaprohibita Mahmood, the fairice secretary, originates a statement to MPs about the sentencing assess.
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