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There were jubilant scenes outside prison gates on Tuesday as hundreds of inmates were freed early in a desperate bid to stop jails from becoming completely full.
Some of the 1,700 prisoners due to be released 40 per cent of the way into their sentence on Tuesday were filmed being sprayed with sparkling wine as they tasted freedom either days, weeks or months early, as jubilant crowds gathered outside Wandsworth Prison.
Music could be heard playing at the gates of the south London jail in one clip, as people were seen joyfully reuniting with friends and loved ones.
Asked whether he felt rehabilitated, one 59-year-old departing inmate convicted of violent crime and named only as “Mr T” told reporters: “Certainly not. There is no rehabilitation. No one talks to you, you just go in, lie down and 17 months later I’m out ... I’m not looking to reoffend, but, you never know. You can never say no.”
Another said: “This is not a bonus for me, to be released like this, not knowing what’s going on, only having housing for three months.”
But there was elation among others walking through the prison gates. One convicted drug dealer, 20, told The Telegraph that his early release had made him “a lifelong Labour voter”, and said he was “going to get lit” to celebrate his early freedom after leaving HMP Isis, in southeast London.
Condemning scenes of sparkling wine being sprayed as “completely unacceptable”, Downing Street said the early release scheme was “the right thing to do to make sure we did not face a situation where criminality would be left unchecked on our streets because we didn’t have enough prison places”.
A 25-year-old jailed for conspiracy to commit robbery told The Telegraph he was going to “chill and work” with his friends and partner after leaving prison, saying: “It’s a joke – my actual release date was tomorrow. It’s one day earlier, but I’ll take it. It’s sweet, isn’t it?
“I didn’t find out I was being released early until I got my papers through a few days ago. I kept my head down inside, got on with my stuff. I kept myself to myself – didn’t get in with any gangs. I’m a good boy now. I’m going to see my girlfriend, see my mates, and just chill and work. I ain’t going back in there.”
The mass release – which follows the last-minute early release of more than 10,000 people over the past year under emergency Tory-initiated schemes – came on the same day that prisons chief inspector Charlie Taylor warned in his annual inspection that “brutalising” prison conditions are fundamentally undermining efforts to cut reoffending.
With the crisis-stricken probation service now set to receive an influx of new cases to manage in the community, the Probation and Family Court staff union Napo expressed fears that it marked a “ticking timebomb that could put public safety at risk”.
And speaking at the Police Superintendents’ Association annual conference, acting president Nick Smart warned that officers “are once again being placed at the centre of a storm that is not their doing, with the prospect of arresting offenders who can then not be placed in prison, and dealing with the fallout from the thousands of criminals being released early today, many potentially without proper rehabilitation and release plans”.
