UK prisons facing serious overcrowding crisis
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The reading
The new government in the UK is having to deal with a serious crisis in its prison system. The new Labour administration made the decision on Friday to release thousands of prisoners before the convicts had finished serving their sentence. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer attributed the mess in Britain's prisons service to a decade of neglect and underinvestment under the previous Conservative Party, which had been in power for 14 years. The prisoner population is nearly at capacity. Inmates are having to be released early to accommodate newly-sentenced felons. Some will be released having served just 40 per cent of their time. Mr Starmer said the problem was "pretty unforgivable, in my book".
The UK's justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, warned of a "total breakdown in law and order" if prisons reached capacity. Ms Mahmood said: "Prisons are on the point of collapse". If space ran out, there would be nowhere to put those arrested or newly sentenced. The justice system would be overloaded. Mahmood said there would be "looters running amok, smashing windows, robbing shops and setting neighbourhoods alight". There are currently only 1,451 places available. She blamed former leader Rishi Sunak and prisons ministers for a "dereliction of duty" and for decimating the system. She called them: "The guilty men who put their political careers ahead of the safety and security of our country."
Sources:
- https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/world/europe/uk-prisons-early-release.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/12/thousands-prisoners-released-early-avoid-total-breakdown-law-order
- https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uks-new-justice-secretary-set-outline-emergency-measures-111872660
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