Prison Capacity 2025-07-08
2025-07-08
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Q1
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Context
Concerns about crime in Bournemouth and the need to increase prison spaces to keep dangerous people away from the public and punish serious crimes. Constituent Tim from Athelstan Road provided suggestions for achieving this.
Every week brings new concerns about crime in Bournemouth, and I will pick up this issue with the police and crime commissioner for my area in my Boscombe office on Friday. Increasing prison spaces keeps dangerous people away from the public, punishes serious crime, and stops reoffending, especially where it applies to violent crime.
Public protection is our No. 1 priority, but we are also tackling reoffending with proper programmes in place in prison. We need to support people when they come out of prison as well, and probation is part of that solution.
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Q2
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Pressure on prison places due to the early release scheme introduced by the current government. Nearly a quarter of those released under this scheme reoffended within just one year.
In light of the pressure on prison places, what assessment has the Minister made of the Government’s early release scheme? The data shows that nearly a quarter of those released reoffended again within just one year. Does he believe that the criteria used to determine eligibility were fit for purpose?
Due to the circumstances that this Government found when we came into office, we had no option but to introduce a temporary change to the law to allow prisoners serving an eligible standard determinate sentence to be released on licence. This scheme had many more constraints than the early release scheme operated by the previous Government, which was rushed out just before the election. The data has not yet been published, so the right hon. Gentleman will have to wait for that.
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