First 700 Inmates Walk Free as England and Wales Begin Landmark Early Release Scheme

Hundreds of prisoners began walking out of jails across England and Wales on Thursday as the first phase of a controversial early release programme got under way, with authorities racing to ease pressure on a prison system that officials warn is only months away from running out of space.

An estimated 700 inmates were due to be freed on the opening day of the scheme, the first of ten scheduled waves that will ultimately see around 4,500 prisoners released between now and June 2027. Ministry of Justice figures published on Monday showed 87,499 people were being held in prisons across England and Wales, putting the overall population at 98.2% of usable capacity.

The releases follow the Sentencing Act introduced by Sir Keir Starmer's government, which changed the point at which many offenders become eligible for parole. Under the new rules, prisoners who would previously have served 40% or 50% of their sentence behind bars are now freed after a third, while those who once served two-thirds will leave after half.

Thursday's cohort consists of inmates serving shorter terms of up to 19 months. The most serious offenders affected by the programme – those handed fixed sentences of more than 12 years – are not due to be released until the later waves of the scheme. Indeterminate sentences, which are reserved for the most grave offences such as murder, are excluded entirely and still require a parole board to determine whether a prisoner is safe to return to the community.

The government has sought to reassure the public that those leaving custody will be closely supervised, pointing to expanded use of electronic tagging and strict licence conditions. Treasury minister James Murray acknowledged the strength of feeling around the policy, telling BBC Breakfast that ministers recognised the concern and anger it would provoke.

"This is not a situation where there is any good solution – there's just a series of very difficult choices we've got to take," Murray said. He argued the government had "inherited a prison system on the brink" and warned that without early releases, the country would reach a point where "people who are arrested now can't go behind bars."

Murray added that measures were in place to limit the movement of freed offenders, though he conceded he could not offer guarantees about how individuals would behave. "I can't guarantee exactly what will happen, but I can tell people we have done everything we can to reduce the amount of people being released as far as possible," he said.

The scope of the scheme was narrowed after Prime Minister Andy Burnham intervened to review its terms, cutting the expected number of releases from roughly 6,000. Offences removed from eligibility include all forms of manslaughter, grooming offences, and causing or allowing the death of a child.

Even so, victim advocates remain deeply uneasy. London Victims' Commissioner Andrea Simon said the exemptions had failed to cover some offenders whose impending release represents "a genuinely terrifying prospect" for the people they harmed. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she argued there was "no real reason to believe that an even shorter spell in prison will have dealt with the risk that their offender poses."

Simon also cast doubt on whether tagging would provide meaningful protection. Electronic monitoring "will tell you where someone is but it can't stop them from doing something they shouldn't be doing," she said, suggesting the technology offers surveillance rather than prevention.

Her concerns echoed warnings issued earlier this week by Martin Jones, the Chief Inspector of Probation, who said the electronic monitoring regime had "not kept pace" with the demands placed on it and risked creating "a false sense of assurance" unless shortcomings were addressed. The remarks raise questions about whether the Probation Service has the resources to manage thousands of additional offenders in the community at once.

For victims, the uncertainty surrounding release dates is proving almost as distressing as the releases themselves. Kirsty Pellant, whose perpetrator was convicted of several offences including stalking and jailed for five years in January 2025, said she had been assured he would not be freed in the first wave but had not been told when he would be. Pellant, who discovered her photograph had been used to create a fake identity online portraying her as a sex worker, told the Today programme the lack of clarity "leaves us in such a dangerous position as victims because we need to be prepared, we need to know what we're dealing with."

Some of those leaving prison painted a grim picture of conditions inside. Former bus driver Michael Bogle, released from London's Wandsworth Prison, described the environment there as "awful" and expressed support for the early release policy, telling reporters that "tagging is better than prison." Others, however, voiced anxiety about the lack of support waiting for them on the outside, and one man said he had only learned he was being released on Thursday morning.

The current programme is not the first attempt to relieve overcrowding through early releases. A similar scheme brought in by the previous Conservative government saw more than 10,000 prisoners freed early between October 2023 and September 2024.

Prisoners released under the new arrangements remain liable to be returned to custody immediately if they breach the terms of their licence, a sanction officials regard as a key safeguard. The coming months will test whether tagging, supervision and probation staffing can cope with what is expected to be the largest sustained reduction in the prison population in recent years – and whether public confidence can hold as more waves of inmates follow the first 700 out of the gates.