Action being taken to ensure domestic abuse prisoners not among those released early tomorrow, minister says

Prisoners set to be released early tomorrow have been trawled through in an attempt to not let domestic abusers go, the policing minister has said.

Tuesday will see about 1,700 prisoners released early to alleviate overcrowding in prisons in England and Wales.

The government said serious violent criminals, terrorists and domestic abuse perpetrators will not be released as part of the scheme.

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However, the domestic abuse commissioner Nicole Jacobs told The Times victims of domestic abuse are having “sleepless nights” over the release as they fear those who have been convicted of crimes such as common assault towards a partner will not be flagged as domestic abusers.

Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said the government has been trying to ensure that does not happen.

She told Sky News: “There’s been a real trawl through to try and identify where their primary offence isn’t domestic abuse, we know there’s a history, and that’s where the steps have been put in to protect as best we can.

“Because we know, unfortunately, domestic abuse is so prevalent amongst the offending community.”

Sir Keir Starmer has blamed the previous Conservative government for not building enough prisons, saying he has been “forced into” releasing prisoners early.

Dame Diana said about 1,700 prisoners will be released tomorrow. A total of about 5,500 prisoners in England and Wales are expected to be released earlier than planned in September and October as part of the temporary scheme.

The prisoners will serve the rest of their sentences under the “strictest licensing conditions” and will be tagged, the government has said.

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But Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, said there are “no risk-free options available”.

He said the eight weeks the government has given the probation service to plan for the scheme has given it “at least a fighting chance of getting this right”.

However, he warned the number of offenders being released means some could reoffend when they should have been in jail.

He told The Times in August: “I think it’s inevitable, being realistic about it, that things will go wrong. I wish we could live in a perfect world where that doesn’t happen.

“What I think you should start to see, at least, is that if people have to focus on those, that they start to identify where things go wrong, and they draw lessons from that quite quickly.

“I also think there’s a little bit of a numbers game to some extent, you’re rolling the dice all the time in relation to serious further offences.

“You know, ultimately, if you release thousands of people, a number of those cases will ultimately, sadly, there will be things that will go wrong.”

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A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The new government inherited a justice system in crisis and has been forced into taking difficult but necessary action to ensure we can keep locking up dangerous criminals and protect the public.

“Anyone released into Home Detention Curfew is risk-assessed, faces the strictest licensing conditions and must be tagged.”