Five of the most senior former judges in England and Wales have warned that “radical solutions” such as the earlier release of killers and rapists on licence should be considered to ease the prison overcrowding crisis.
The four surviving former lord chief justices – Lord Woolf, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and Lord Burnett of Maldon – and Sir Brian Leveson, the only surviving president of the queen’s bench division, have recommended a review at the halfway stage of the determinate sentences of all prisoners serving longer than 10 years.
