{"id":268505,"date":"2025-03-28T02:52:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T02:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/28\/government-wont-rule-out-shortening-sentences-of-violent-offenders-to-free-up-prison-space-as-it-opens-new-jail\/"},"modified":"2025-03-28T02:52:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T02:52:18","slug":"government-wont-rule-out-shortening-sentences-of-violent-offenders-to-free-up-prison-space-as-it-opens-new-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/28\/government-wont-rule-out-shortening-sentences-of-violent-offenders-to-free-up-prison-space-as-it-opens-new-jail\/","title":{"rendered":"Government won’t rule out shortening sentences of violent offenders to free up prison space as it opens new jail"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Government<\/div>


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The justice secretary has not ruled out shortening the sentences of violent offenders in a drive to create more space in an over-stretched prison system.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Sky News, Shabana Mahmood MP said the government wanted to follow the example of Texas in the US, where she said a “good behaviour credit scheme” allows offenders to earn an earlier parole hearing.<\/p>\n

When asked how victims of violent offenders would react to such a move, the justice secretary said her message to them was: “We’ve all got an interest in making sure the country does not run out of prison places.<\/p>\n

“If you run out of prison places, none of your options are good options, or anything anyone would be happy about.<\/p>\n

“So we’ve got to do things differently.”<\/p>\n

Ms Mahmood was speaking at the opening of HMP Millsike in East Yorkshire – a brand new nearly 1,500 capacity prison, built as part of a government plan to create 14,000 new prison spaces by 2031.<\/p>\n

The new Category C jail is focused on rehabilitation, with skills and training for inmates to try and help them get jobs when they leave prison.<\/p>\n

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More on Ministry Of Justice<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

It also has technology like barless windows and X-ray body scanners to stop drugs and drones getting into the prison.<\/p>\n

But, by the Ministry of Justice’s own estimate, their target for new prison spaces will not go far enough to tackle the overcrowding crisis.<\/p>\n

Prisons are currently at over 99% capacity – with less than 800 spaces left in jails across England and Wales.<\/p>\n

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\n The new prison in East Yorkshire. Pic: PA
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The government recently triggered Operation Safeguard<\/a><\/strong>, an emergency measure to hold prisoners in police cells because of a lack of space.<\/p>\n

The Lord Chancellor said the government has launched a sentencing review because it “cannot build their way” out of the crisis.<\/p>\n

Ms Mahmood added that just focusing on short sentence reviews “would not go far enough”.<\/p>\n

MPs from the Public Accounts Committee warned earlier this month that the plan to deliver the 14,000 new places on time are “still fraught with risk and uncertainty”.<\/p>\n

They also said the government is facing a nearly \u00a32.8bn bill to fix disrepair issues across the existing prison estate.<\/p>\n

Tom Wheatley, president of the Prison Governors Association, told Sky News the “maintenance crisis” is worsening problems with overcrowding.<\/p>\n

Read more from Sky News:<\/strong>
King briefly hospitalised<\/a>
Five wounded in Amsterdam stabbing<\/a>
How was the spring statement?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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He said many jails built in Victorian times “require an awful lot of money to maintain”.<\/p>\n

“And if you don’t maintain them – if you lose a heating system or security systems that are absolutely necessary for the prison to run effectively – you also lose the accommodation. So these things become compound issues.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The justice secretary has not ruled out shortening the sentences of violent offenders in a drive to create more space in an over-stretched prison system. Speaking to Sky News, Shabana Mahmood MP said the government wanted to follow the example of Texas in the US, where she said a “good behaviour credit scheme” allows offenders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/03\/768x432\/skynews-hmp-millsike-prisons_6869117.jpg?20250328003228","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[508,3954,9197,47836,887,5918,3980,5917,206269,28,1390,2829],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268507,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268505\/revisions\/268507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}