Prisons and Probation
The IfG report summarises the picture with admirable brevity and accuracy stating that in July 2024, when the Starmer government came into office, the prison system in England and Wales was facing disaster. Prisons were almost out of space, with occupancy levels hitting 99%; existing early release schemes were highly chaotic and had largely reached their limits. Violence was very high, protests and self-harm were both at record levels and all were rising rapidly. Purposeful activity for prisoners – education, employment and training – was very poor, and prisons were struggling with inexperienced staff and high leaving rates.
The state of the probation service was not much better. The Sunak government’s ad hoc early release scheme saw thousands of prisoners released, often with only a few hours’ notice, making effective preparation for release impossible; at its peak, 14% of people released were sleeping rough.* The unification and renationalisation of the probation service in 2021 had failed to improve its poor performance, with inspectorate ratings falling even further. Caseloads and vacancy rates were very high, and sentence requirements such as unpaid work and rehabilitative activity were not being delivered for many offenders.
Facing this incredibly difficult set of challenges, the Starmer government “did an impressive job” of stabilising the situation. Within days of the general election, the then justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, set out a plan for dealing with the immediate capacity crisis in prisons, and also committed to expanding the recruitment of probation officer trainees, addressing (although not resolving) the two most pressing problems. After that, the administration brought in substantial changes to sentencing and policy changes to reduce the active caseload on probation, as well as making some progress in stabilising the workforce.
Minimal improvements
The IfG’s assessment though is that all this “has only been enough to stave off disaster”. Performance improvements have so far been extremely modest, with violence and deaths in prisons still high and the probation service still failing to deliver adequate risk assessment or manage offenders effectively in the community. And there is no coherent strategy to improve this.
Over the summer of this year, the then justice secretary David Lammy appointed Amber Rudd, former Conservative home secretary, to conduct a review into safety and security in prisons. But this will not report for several months, and in the meantime, prisons will continue to struggle with serious problems from drugs, violence and organised crime.
The situation is still more precarious in probation, which is currently facing perhaps its most difficult moment at least since the service was broken up under the coalition government in 2014. Around 4,500 prisoners are being released from October with the implementation of the Sentencing Act 2026. This is on top of thousands more offenders expected to receive suspended sentences rather than short stretches in prison, who will also need supervising.
The Starmer government struggled to substantially increase the number of probation practitioners – probation officers and probation services officers who supervise offenders. This has left probation still far short of the number needed to manage this caseload effectively. The service deserves real credit for how it has managed an extremely difficult situation and multiple policy changes. But performance improvement is still a long way off.
The infographic which I have reproduced below gives a great summary.
Source: www.russellwebster.com
