Prisoners have thanked Andy Burnham as they celebrated walking free from jail early.
The first wave of releases began on Thursday, with 700 offenders walking out across England and Wales under the government’s plan to ease prison overcrowding.
Those released from dozens of prisons under the government’s latest early release scheme on Thursday were greeted by huddles of journalists requesting their personal messages for the prime minister.
Some offenders said they would soon return to jail, because they had nowhere to live and would breach their licence conditions.
A man leaving HMP Brixton on Thursday. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
It follows the damaging early release scheme under Keir Starmer in 2024 when offenders were photographed holding bottles of champagne while saying: “Big up Starmer”.
Among the first releases, a former bus driver turned shoplifter, Michael Bogle, 38, from Brent, north London, stepped into the sunlight outside HMP Wandsworth, a south London prison notable for a string of recent scandals.
Ukrainian national Vladimir Hudzyk, 38, celebrates leaving HMP Wormwood Scrubs, in White City, London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA
Having served 78 days in prison after breaching a 32-week suspended sentence for shoplifting, he was released early and was pleased that he had been given a place in a bail hostel in south-east London.
Asked for his message to Burnham, he said: “Keep the early release going. It’s good.”
Bogle, who has been jailed five separate times for 100 convictions, said he had been driven to shoplift “so he could eat” after being made homeless.
Prison was “terrible”, Bogle said, adding that there were “too many drugs”. He said there was a risk he would shoplift again, “but hopefully not”.
A man wears a bag over his head as he walks away from HMP Brixton. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
A man leaving HMP Cardiff, who was asked if he had a message for the prime minister, said: “Thank you very much and don’t get me back here again, bro.”
People near the end of their time behind bars are meant to be given help to prepare for life outside prison, which includes advice on finding somewhere to live, getting a job and looking after money.
Parole officers have said that they have not been able to find temporary accommodation for many of those being released.
Tom, 32, who was released from HMP Cardiff after being jailed for burglary, admitted he would “probably be back in the next month or two”. He has been in and out of prison 30 times since he was 15 years old.
“I have always said the easiest part is being in jail, the hardest part is getting out. I’d happily spend my time in [jail]. I’ve got nothing better to do with myself, I’m homeless.”
David Elliott, 50, who served seven weeks of a 20-week sentence in HMP Brixton, south London, showed reporters a four-page document of licence conditions, which he feared he would breach without a fixed address.
“One of my conditions is I’ve got to be in an address to get my alcohol tag put on my foot,” he said. “I’ve got nowhere to live; I’ll be getting recalled back to prison because I’ve got nowhere to put my tag on.”
The prisoners are among thousands the government has been forced to let out to free up space in overcrowded jails and stop the collapse of the justice system.
Starmer and previous Tory administrations presided over similar plans.
People released from HMP Brixton on Thursday. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
About 2,000 criminals, including domestic abusers and violent offenders, are to be freed over the next month, with another 3,000 in stages over the next year to ease overcrowding. The number was reduced from 6,000 after an intervention by Burnham.
Prisoners guilty of manslaughter will also be excluded, meaning the killers of PC Andrew Harper, who died in the line of duty in 2019, will not be eligible.
The number of people behind bars has jumped by more than 1,700 in the past three months. The prison population in England and Wales was 87,499 on Monday, according to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data. This is up from 85,761 on 29 June, a rise of 2%.
The MoJ said released offenders would be monitored under the “toughest supervision in British history”.
The victims’ commissioner, Claire Waxman, said the government’s confidence in the plan “is not yet matched by the reality on the ground”.
Alice Russell-Harris, public affairs lead at the domestic abuse charity Refuge, said some survivors had “no alternative” than to seek help in refuge centres to escape released perpetrators. “While we appreciate the need to ease pressure on prison estates, women and girls should not be left to pay the price,” she said.
The MoJ said released offenders would be monitored under the ‘toughest supervision in British history’. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
The justice secretary, Alex Norris, said: “We understand the anxiety victims face ahead of offenders’ release dates, but the greatest danger to victims would be prisons running out of cells for dangerous criminals, which was the crisis this government inherited.
“Our plan will make sure this never happens again by building 14,000 prison places while subjecting offenders to the toughest-ever controls, leaving them nowhere to hide and under no doubt that we are watching them.”
The move coincides with the justice secretary being sworn in as lord chancellor at a ceremony at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London on the first day of the new legal year, where he vowed to the most senior judges in England and Wales that he would be “ambitious” in his effort to cut the backlog of court cases.