Thousands of criminals including killers and rapists to be set loose under 'reckless' early prison release scheme

Thousands of criminals, including rapists and killers will be released early from prison under new plans.

From September, Justice Secretary David Lammy will implement legal changes to see criminals guilty of serious offences released early for the first time.

This includes prisoners convicted of manslaughter, rape, GBH and sex offences - who will be eligible for release just halfway through the sentences.

Prisoners will be first evaluated on behaviour and will be deemed ineligible for release if they have committed any serious rule breaches behind bars.

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Criminals convicted of burglary, theft, assault and repeated shoplifting could be freed after serving only a third of their sentence, rather than the current 40 per cent benchmark.

A first set of 700 prisoners will be released in September, with a similar number of criminals freed for each of the next nine months in a staggered release plan.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has said the move is necessary in order to combat overflowing prison populations.

It did not confirm how many prisoners will be freed in total, but the figure is believed to lie between 5,000 and 7,000.

The construction of 14,000 extra jail places, as well as sentencing reforms, are in place to ensure that dangerous criminals can always be locked up, the MoJ insists.

A spokesman for the department told The Telegraph: "Without this decisive action, prisons would have run out of space entirely, making it impossible for convicted offenders to be sent to prison and risking the complete breakdown of the criminal justice system, putting the public at untold risk."

Concerns have been raised by prison and probation chiefs, noting that victims may be shocked to learn of the release of their perpetrators.

Tom Wheatley, the president of the Prison Governors' Association, said: "Once the MoJ starts writing to victims and saying this is what is happening, there will inevitably be individual victims who have suffered at the hands of an offender who will become very upset.

"They will have been expecting the person to be in prison for a much longer period, but now they are going to be out in weeks. It is not like the various previous early release schemes, where there were exclusions for particular types of offenders. This is a statutory change, so it doesn’t matter what you have been sentenced for."

Nick Timothy, the Shadow Justice Secretary, said the early release scheme was insulting to victims and a threat to the public.

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He added: "Killers and rapists, including the evil rape gang perpetrators, should remain behind bars where they belong, but Labour wants to let them back on the street.

"The Conservatives warned this would happen when we opposed the Sentencing Act, but the Government didn't listen and it is the public who will pay the price."

Reforms were recommended last year by David Gauke, the former Tory Justice Secretary, as he and Shabana Mahmood, then the Justice Secretary, visited Texas to take inspiration from the state's prison reform.

Texas implemented an "earned progression" scheme, with time reduced from a sentence based on good behaviour.

Britain's system differs, however, by adding time to a sentence from the third or halfway point rather than reducing their sentence through good behaviour.

Similar to Texas, prisoners are expected to be GPS-tagged with conditions including curfews and geographic restrictions.

A pilot scheme at six prisons next month will tag prisoners before they leave jail.

Lord Timpson, the Prisons Minister, said: "We're fixing the broken prison system we inherited so jails help cut crime, rehabilitate offenders and make our streets safer.

"That is why we're doubling the maximum extra days prisoners can face for serious breaches of prison rules, ensuring bad behaviour has real consequences."

The MoJ spokesman said the Government was "also making sure punishment works to cut crime and strengthening supervision in the community - investing £700m into probation, recruiting 1,300 additional probation officers this year, and ensuring every prison leaver is tagged unless there is clear reason not to".

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