After serving 30 years as a police officer, I am very aware of the impact of violent crime.
The last nine years of my service were spent leading murder investigation teams and I came to know the families of the victims in those cases very well.
I got to see the traumatic effects on them of violent crime and the loss of their loved ones.
Today, I fear that more people will soon pay a very serious price - possibly the ultimate one - when the government’s latest early release scheme for prisoners starts.
Over the next nine months, around 4,500 offenders, many convicted of violent and sexual offences, and domestic abuse, will be back on the streets earlier than they should be.
During the first early release scheme in 2024, we saw how dangerous offenders barely waited to unpack their toothbrushes before reoffending.
Liam Matthews, 26, was freed early in September that year after serving three-and-a-half months for his part in a group attack on another man.
Yet barely 12 hours after being released, he armed himself with a chisel and joined two others to hunt down and kill Lewis Bell, 26, over a drug feud in Stockton-on-Tees.
Others among the approximately 5,000 prisoners granted early release in September and October 2024 by the new Labour government rubbed salt in the wounds of victims with outrageous behaviour.
Champagne corks popped and music blasted out from speakers as offenders walked free to party with friends outside prison gates.
One brazen lag was collected in a brand spanking new £200,000 Lamborghini.
If such stomach-churning antics happen today it will be hard to bear for crime victims.
Yet this is all totally unnecessary. Instead of releasing potentially dangerous prisoners after serving just 40% of their tariff, there are viable alternatives.
And while we should not be in this position, successive governments have failed to invest in the prison estate.
An increase in the number of prisoners coupled with a much larger population, fuelled by unfettered mass immigration, means something has to be done.
My own preference is for foreign offenders to be deported to their countries of origin. This would immediately relieve pressure on the creaking prison system by creating 10,000 more spaces.
If any of those countries refused to accept convicted offenders back home, then we should seek alternative places abroad for them to serve their sentences, as other nations do.
Belgium and Norway send prisoners to serve their sentences in the Netherlands, which had a surplus of empty prison cells, while Denmark transports offenders to Kosovo.
Sweden ships prisoners to Estonia, which charges an appropriate fee.
All those countries are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, but have no problem sending their prisoners abroad to serve sentences. It is a much better solution than freeing potentially dangerous prisoners to strike again.
I have no doubt that an alternative country could be found for holding our own prisoners abroad if our government wished to do so.
The next important step would be to spend time and money creating more prison spaces here in this country.
We managed to create Nightingale courts and hospitals during the pandemic.
Would it not be sensible to introduce Nightingale prisons, for example, in disused military camps, or similar locations?
Unfortunately, we have a naive government, which as a matter of principle would rather let prisoners out than keep them locked up, so their answer is the early release scheme.
However, even then, they are going about it the wrong way by applying a mathematical formula to the issue rather than considering whether individual prisoners are fit for release.
There is no heed paid to the individual risks that prisoners pose, or any thought for their victims.
If we have got to release prisoners early then surely there should be an assessment of their risk.
It should be perfectly possible to do this with every one of them - if there was a will to do so.
I think it is inevitable that some of those prisoners being released will reoffend and quite quickly.
The whole scheme has been rushed and badly thought through, and the support mechanisms are not in place.
Probation services have yet to receive their promised uplift in resourcing and it will be impossible to put electronic tags on everyone being released.
Indeed, it seems that the majority of those released won’t be tagged.
It is a recipe for more violence and crime with innocent people paying the price.
This situation has been brewing since 2010 with the UK’s population having increased by 6.7 million - it is now estimated to have reached 69.5 million. And that’s just the figures we know about.
In the meantime, the number of prison spaces in England and Wales has only gone up by 500 to 89,000. Operating at 98% capacity, they are now effectively full to the brim.
Something has got to give, but there are alternatives to simply letting prisoners out and letting victims of crime down.
We owe it to those victims to consider other viable options for holding prisoners in custody rather than releasing dangerous offenders back into the community.
It is highly unlikely that all those released will have already been rehabilitated - and the support structures to help them re-enter society are either absent or under-resourced.
The reoffending rate for those released from prison stands at around 30%, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Sadly, it is inevitable that some of those who are due to be released early will quickly reoffend - and that more pain and suffering will be caused by the folly of this scheme.
(This is a slightly edited version of an article published in the Sun on 1st October.)
The last nine years of my service were spent leading murder investigation teams and I came to know the families of the victims in those cases very well.
I got to see the traumatic effects on them of violent crime and the loss of their loved ones.
Today, I fear that more people will soon pay a very serious price - possibly the ultimate one - when the government’s latest early release scheme for prisoners starts.
Over the next nine months, around 4,500 offenders, many convicted of violent and sexual offences, and domestic abuse, will be back on the streets earlier than they should be.
During the first early release scheme in 2024, we saw how dangerous offenders barely waited to unpack their toothbrushes before reoffending.
Liam Matthews, 26, was freed early in September that year after serving three-and-a-half months for his part in a group attack on another man.
Yet barely 12 hours after being released, he armed himself with a chisel and joined two others to hunt down and kill Lewis Bell, 26, over a drug feud in Stockton-on-Tees.
Others among the approximately 5,000 prisoners granted early release in September and October 2024 by the new Labour government rubbed salt in the wounds of victims with outrageous behaviour.
Champagne corks popped and music blasted out from speakers as offenders walked free to party with friends outside prison gates.
One brazen lag was collected in a brand spanking new £200,000 Lamborghini.
If such stomach-churning antics happen today it will be hard to bear for crime victims.
Yet this is all totally unnecessary. Instead of releasing potentially dangerous prisoners after serving just 40% of their tariff, there are viable alternatives.
And while we should not be in this position, successive governments have failed to invest in the prison estate.
An increase in the number of prisoners coupled with a much larger population, fuelled by unfettered mass immigration, means something has to be done.
My own preference is for foreign offenders to be deported to their countries of origin. This would immediately relieve pressure on the creaking prison system by creating 10,000 more spaces.
If any of those countries refused to accept convicted offenders back home, then we should seek alternative places abroad for them to serve their sentences, as other nations do.
Belgium and Norway send prisoners to serve their sentences in the Netherlands, which had a surplus of empty prison cells, while Denmark transports offenders to Kosovo.
Sweden ships prisoners to Estonia, which charges an appropriate fee.
All those countries are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, but have no problem sending their prisoners abroad to serve sentences. It is a much better solution than freeing potentially dangerous prisoners to strike again.
I have no doubt that an alternative country could be found for holding our own prisoners abroad if our government wished to do so.
The next important step would be to spend time and money creating more prison spaces here in this country.
We managed to create Nightingale courts and hospitals during the pandemic.
Would it not be sensible to introduce Nightingale prisons, for example, in disused military camps, or similar locations?
Unfortunately, we have a naive government, which as a matter of principle would rather let prisoners out than keep them locked up, so their answer is the early release scheme.
However, even then, they are going about it the wrong way by applying a mathematical formula to the issue rather than considering whether individual prisoners are fit for release.
There is no heed paid to the individual risks that prisoners pose, or any thought for their victims.
If we have got to release prisoners early then surely there should be an assessment of their risk.
It should be perfectly possible to do this with every one of them - if there was a will to do so.
I think it is inevitable that some of those prisoners being released will reoffend and quite quickly.
The whole scheme has been rushed and badly thought through, and the support mechanisms are not in place.
Probation services have yet to receive their promised uplift in resourcing and it will be impossible to put electronic tags on everyone being released.
Indeed, it seems that the majority of those released won’t be tagged.
It is a recipe for more violence and crime with innocent people paying the price.
This situation has been brewing since 2010 with the UK’s population having increased by 6.7 million - it is now estimated to have reached 69.5 million. And that’s just the figures we know about.
In the meantime, the number of prison spaces in England and Wales has only gone up by 500 to 89,000. Operating at 98% capacity, they are now effectively full to the brim.
Something has got to give, but there are alternatives to simply letting prisoners out and letting victims of crime down.
We owe it to those victims to consider other viable options for holding prisoners in custody rather than releasing dangerous offenders back into the community.
It is highly unlikely that all those released will have already been rehabilitated - and the support structures to help them re-enter society are either absent or under-resourced.
The reoffending rate for those released from prison stands at around 30%, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Sadly, it is inevitable that some of those who are due to be released early will quickly reoffend - and that more pain and suffering will be caused by the folly of this scheme.
(This is a slightly edited version of an article published in the Sun on 1st October.)
