Can Labour solve our prisons crisis?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

Politics, Daily News, News

4.4 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has acknowledged that ‘our prisons are on the point of collapse’. She has announced that, from September, most prisoners serving sentences of less than four years will be released 40 per cent of the way through their sentences instead of the halfway point, which is currently the case.

The policy will ease pressure on prisons, but the question remains; could this backfire? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and Professor Ian Acheson, former prison governor and former Director of Community Safety at the Home Office.

You can listen to Shabana Mahmood on Women With Balls here.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	If you enjoy our podcasts, why not subscribe to The Spectator too for more from your favorite
0:04.8	podcast hosts and guests. You can get three months of The Spectator for just three pounds right now.
0:09.9	If you go to Spectator. K. I'm Katie Paul's and I'm joined by Fraser Nelson and Ian Acherson, former
0:24.4	prison governor and director of community safety at the home office and now a
0:28.1	senior advisor at the Counter Extremism Project and Rights for the
0:31.1	Spectator. Now over the weekend Kiestama gave his first press conference in 10 Downing Street after his first cabinet and he warned that tough choices were coming down the
0:45.0	just as we're getting a sense of what those tough choices are and we're expecting and as has been briefed overnight
0:48.0	Chubana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary to announce
0:50.0	the early release of prisoners
0:52.0	those on fixed sentences could be released after serving
0:55.3	40% of their sentence as opposed to the current 50% with some exemptions in.
1:00.3	Ian, do you think that Shabana, Mahmood and Kirstama had much choice here? in was so bad they had to take quite drastic action. Action Ritchie Sunet could not take because he was too
1:15.8	scared of a backlash of the parliamentary party. Yeah, thanks for having you on Katie. I mean this is real first of all.
1:22.0	This is not a confected thing. I mean Kirstau... you on the
1:27.0	the case i mean this is real first of all this is not a confected thing i mean
1:24.6	kirstomber is cross because i'm sure you know having stood in a platform of
1:28.1	change on the basis of tackling crime and on social behavior The first change she probably didn't want to make
1:34.4	was releasing lots of people out onto the streets. So they're out of time, the right of options,
1:40.0	and the right of space, frankly, in prisons. So we've got to release a significant number of
1:44.6	prisoners to give the prison service the breathing space that otherwise could have led to
1:50.6	gridlock in the criminal justice system which you know would show a new government
1:55.7	unable to process people convicted of serious offenses into the system because it was
	...

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