Unlikely release of 4,000

The Government has given its clearest signal yet that it has shelved plans for the early release of 4,000 prisoners.

The measure was announced by Robert Buckland QC MP, the Justice Secretary, in early April to cut overcrowding in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet in the month that followed, fewer than 100 prisoners were freed.

Now the Prisons Minister, Lucy Frazer, has told MPs that the need for early releases has diminished – suggesting that only a small fraction of the original target will ever be reached.

Public Health England, the advisory body which originally called for the release of 16,000 prisoners to eliminate cell-sharing, now says that 5,000 to 5,500 should be freed to allow “headroom” for the segregation of prisoners into different risk groups.

Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, the prison population in England and Wales has dropped by 3,000 due to courts being closed, police being off sick and fewer crimes being committed. Frazer told the Commons Justice Committee that this left a need to free up only 2,000 to 2,500 spaces.

Furthermore, she said that some of this could be achieved by installing temporary single cells rather than releasing prisoners. The Ministry of Justice has announced plans for 2,000 temporary cells – which, if achieved, could mean no further early releases.

Frazer said: “The 4,000 was always the number of people who would be eligible for the scheme, not the necessarily the number who were released.”

The main scheme announced by Buckland on April 4 was the End of Custody Temporary Release (ECTR), under which low-risk prisoners can be allowed out on an electronic tag up to two months before their release date.

Separately, he said up to 70 pregnant prisoners and women in mother-and-baby units would be freed early on health grounds. There is also a scheme for people whose pre-existing health conditions make them exceptionally vulnerable to COVID-19 to apply for release on compassionate grounds.

Fraser said that as of May 11, a total of 81 prisoners had been granted early release due to coronavirus – 55 under ECTR, 21 pregnant women or new mothers, and five on compassionate grounds.

Two charities, the Prison Reform Trust and Howard League for Penal Reform, began a legal action against the Government over its failure to release prisoners, but then dropped it after Public Health England changed its advice.

HDC extension dropped

A plan to extend the time that prisoners can spend on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) at the end of their sentences has been dropped by the Government.

Under laws drawn up last year, the maximum period of HDC was to be lengthened from four-and-a-half months to six months. The extension of the early release period would have brought a reduction of around 500 in the prison population of England and Wales.

The measure was due to come before the House of Commons on May 12 for final approval. However, some Conservative MPs threatened to rebel – pointing out that it would mean people who had been sentenced to two years in prison being back on the streets after only six months.

Ministers quietly shelved the plan without making a public statement.

Questioned about the issue by MPs on the Commons Justice Committee, Lucy Frazer QC MP, the Prisons Minister, pointed out that the proposal to extend HDC had been drawn up last year at a time when the prison population was around 83,000. Since then it has declined by at least 2,000 due to the impact of coronavirus on the courts, police and crime rate, meaning that the prison system was now “in a very different place to where we were”.

The Conservatives have argued that time offenders spend in jail should be more closely aligned with the sentence lengths handed down by judges, because early releases undermine public confidence in the justice system. Since the party was re-elected in December, the law has been changed to make prisoners on long determinate sentences serve two-thirds of the time in prison instead of half.

In another indication of the Government’s tough stance on law and order, Frazer reaffirmed its commitment to build 10,000 new prison places at a cost of £2.5 billion. She said it was the “top priority” for the Ministry of Justice after dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. So far 3,000 of the places are under construction with two new jails at Wellingborough and Glen Parva.

Asked about the shelving of the HDC plan, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “We have extended the amount of time that serious and violent offenders spend in prison but must at the same time ensure we rehabilitate lower-level criminals to reduce reoffending.”

A source at the department added: “HDC is a well-established programme to reduce reoffending, supported by successive Governments over the last two decades, that allows offenders to reintegrate back in to the community in a way that is controlled and strictly supervised through the use of electronic monitoring.”

The move came as the Government signalled that it was rowing back on its separate plan to grant early release to 4,000 prisoners, which had been intended to cut overcrowding in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trans sex attacks

Seven sexual assaults have been carried out by transgender prisoners in women’s jails, the Ministry of Justice has disclosed.

The release of the figure has fuelled a debate over whether men who are transitioning to become women should be held in female prisons.

A spokesman for the MoJ said that between 2010 and 2018, “out of the 124 sexual assaults that occurred in the female estate a total of seven were against females in custody perpetrated by transgender individuals”.

The prisons where the attacks occurred were Bronzefield, Foston Hall, Low Newton, New Hall and Peterborough. None of the attacks were against staff.

It was not made clear whether the assaults had been proven or the attackers punished. Nor was it disclosed whether the attackers were born as males and were transitioning to become women, or whether – like the majority of trans prisoners in the women’s estate – they were born as women and were transitioning to become men. Only those still transitioning were counted, not those who had already legally changed gender.

Nicola Williams, director of the campaign group Fair Play For Women, told The Mail on Sunday: “These new figures are another warning about something everyone knows: Allowing males into female prisons is dangerous for women.”

Since 2010, prisoners who have legally changed gender have automatically been sent to the appropriate prison for their new gender. The rules were altered in 2016 so that prisoners who are transitioning can apply to move. Requests are considered by Complex Transgender Case Boards, charged with ensuring that “checks and balances are in place to manage the risks both to the transgender prisoners themselves and others”. Last year seven male-born transitioning prisoners were admitted to female jails. Downview, a women’s prison, has a special unit where male-born transgender prisoners can sleep and shower while mixing with the main population in daytime activities.