Chief prisons inspector warns of 'revolving door' as around 1,750 inmates are set for early release

The chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales has warned that today’s early release of around 1,750 offenders is going to be “risky”.

It is being done to create space in the country’s overcrowded prisons and the government insists the alternative was “unthinkable” and would have led to a “total collapse of the criminal justice system”.

But HMP Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor told Sky News: “It’s a risky time with so many prisoners coming out at the same time. Normally, there are about 1,000 prisoners coming out a week. Most of those 1,000 prisoners will still come out this week. But on top of that, we’ve got 1,700 other prisoners, and then in October, we have another tranche of around 2,000 coming out as well, inevitably, that puts some risks into local communities and greater strain on already stretched probation services.”

Justifying the decision, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “We inherited a prison system on the point of collapse. This is not a change we wanted to make – it was the only option left on the table because the alternative would have seen a total collapse of the criminal justice system.

“We would have seen the breakdown of law and order because courts would not have been able to conduct trials, and the police would not have been able to make arrests.”

Early release will not apply to sexual offences, serious violence and terrorism offences and some cases relating to domestic abuse. The government says it announced the decision as early as possible to give probation services time to prepare.

The mass release coincides with a damning report from the chief inspector which describes a “devastating picture” of life behind bars with “a surge in illicit drug use, self-harm and violence”.

Out of 32 inspected prisons 30 were “poor or insufficiently good” and 60% were overcrowded.

It found that often planned releases were underfunded. At Bedford Prison 30% of those leaving jail had nowhere to live.

Mr Taylor said: “Unless we make sure that people are kept in decent conditions and that they’re doing the work they need to do in order to go out and be successful when they leave prison, then the danger is we end up, as we see in so many cases, that prisoners are simply a revolving door; untreated mental health problems, untreated drug users, people with nowhere to live when they come out, and that just creates more victims of crime, more mayhem in communities and a prison population that is now almost unmanageable.”

His report says the previous government’s early release scheme lessened some pressures temporarily, but did not solve the problem.

Campaigners say that overcrowding is fatal for some prisoners and that overcrowded jails along with staff shortages, mean that inmates are at greater risk of drug addiction and self-harm.

Earlier this year there were 10 deaths in just three months in Parc prison in Bridgend.

A number are thought to be related to synthetic drugs such as spice and nitazines.

Self-harm also doubled in the prison in the last year from 1,088 recorded incidents to 2,330.

26-year-old Ryan Harding was two months from being released from Parc prison when he died of an apparent overdose in January last year.

He’d not been known to use hard drugs, but his mother Catherine Harding says an ombudsman report found synthetic drugs were in his system.

Ms Harding blames the prison for his death saying her son was more vulnerable because he wasn’t getting enough of his medication for epilepsy, and she believes prison officers were among those bringing drugs onto the blocks.

She told Sky News: “I know there were drugs going in there and it wasn’t the prisoners taking them in, or the visitors, it was the prison officers – there’s no other explanation.”

HMP Parc is privately run by G4S.

A G4S spokesperson said: “We send our condolences to Ms Harding and the families who have lost loved ones.

“The vast majority of our staff are honest and hardworking, but, in common with other prisons, we face the challenge of criminal behaviour from a small minority.”

The prison can’t comment on Mr Harding’s case because of an ongoing investigation.

There has been a recent case of corruption at the prison.

In August this year Parc prison officer Jodie Beer, 30, was jailed for six years for attempting to smuggle drugs to an inmate concealed in orange juice cartons.

Zack Griffiths, 32, who was in HMP Parc last year for drug offences set up a campaign group called HMP Prisons Justice Group UK.

He said drugs came into Parc prison through corrupt officers, but also drones were being flown up to some of the windows on certain blocks.

He added: “Very often these drugs are be mixed with very potent synthetic opiates. If you’re not a chemist, how would you know or mixtures you give to people? How do you know what the tolerance levels of the person who’s going to take the drugs are? That’s how people end up dead.”

He says some prisoners are locked up in their cells for up to 23 hours a day and this makes them vulnerable to drug addiction.

He told Sky News: “What we’re talking about here is placing the public at harm, because these people are not being rehabilitated. Inmates are going to come back out onto the streets in your towns, villages and cities, and I consider them to be a higher risk because they’re using drugs, they’re unstable.”

Parc Prison insists it offers a good rehabilitation programme and told Sky News: “We hold a complex cohort of prisoners, many with mental health and substance misuse issues. We are committed to supporting men through our multidisciplinary team of prison and NHS staff.”

Some inmates at Parc will be among the hundreds being released today from prisons across England and Wales.

But with prison recalls already on the rise, it is perhaps inevitable that some will reoffend or breach their bail conditions and find themselves back behind bars.