Labour MP Alex Davies-Jones has been grilled on Labour’s latest plans for early release in Britain’s prisons after considering ending Imprisonment for Public Protection.
Speaking to GB News, the Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls assured that victims are “at the heart of all of these plans”.
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Former justice secretaries have warned that criminals previously deemed “a danger to society” will be freed from jail under the Prime Minister’s new early release plans.
Mr Burnham has been warned his plans to create more prison spaces by ending a category of indefinite sentences, Imprisonment for Public Protection, could possibly lead to high risk offenders returning to Britain’s streets.
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Both Labour and Tory ministers have refused to abolish the controversial sentences of imprisonment for public protection in the past because of this potential risk of freeing dangerous prisoners.
Discussing the plans on GB News, Ms Davies-Jones argued that for those who are released early, it does “not mean freedom”.
She said: “We need to ensure that victims are at the heart of all of these plans, that is why we have funded victim support services to a record tune of half a billion pounds over the next three years, and we’ve increased that to £18.9million.
“And I want to reassure your viewers that release from prison does not mean freedom. There is a presumption that every single offender who is released from prison will be put under a GPS tag, and for the first time ever, we are introducing a world first known as a restriction zone, because what victims and survivors told me is that they were fed up of having to change their behaviour.”
The MP stressed: “They were fed up of having to move house, they were fed up of having to always look over their shoulder wondering if their perpetrator was around the corner, not anymore.
“We are introducing these restriction zones to curtail the liberty of the offender, put them in a very, very small area, and we’re also doing things like banning them from being able to do the things that we all enjoy going to the pub, going to a football game, taking away their driving licence if necessary and if there are any breaches, they will be immediately recalled to prison.
“We’re also ensuring that victims and survivors have the ability to feed into these licensing conditions, so that they can actively put their concerns to the probation officers, to their victim liaison officers, and feed into what could be put on the licensing conditions.”
Pushing back on Ms Davies-Jones, Ellie challenged the MP on the lack of “joined up thinking”, asking her: “How can you tackle violence against women and girls and release these dangerous people onto the streets?”
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She responded: “Well, you’ve outlined the complexity of the issue very well there, it’s about how can we ensure that we look at each case on its merits, that we tackle this properly, considerately and appropriately by introducing legislation in the House, and we do this cross-party, working consensually.
“I was really pleased to see Lord Moylan yesterday welcoming this announcement, saying it was long overdue that we haven’t tackled the historic injustice of IPP sentences, and it’s important that we get this right.
“These were abolished by the coalition Government in 2012, but they weren’t applied retrospectively, so they no longer exist.
“And 80 per cent of these people on IPPs have served decades over their sentence length, and that needs to be looked at if it is to be fair.
“These are historic injustices, but I recognise that this is a complex issue, and each case will be looked at carefully and considerately on its merits.”
Pressed on whether the Government will consider releasing female prisoners to free up spaces, Ms Davies-Jones told GB News that it is something they are already looking into.
The MP explained: “That is exactly what we are doing, the Government is looking at how we can free up capacity within the female prison estate to repurpose it for the male prisoners.
“Because, as you rightly say, the vast majority of women who are in prison, many of which are mothers and have young children, shouldn’t necessarily be there.
“They are victims in their own right, and they can be appropriately managed in the community through women’s centres, but this isn’t going to be a one size fits all approach either.
“There are some women who absolutely should be in prison and they will remain there.
“But where there is a case to answer that, we can repurpose the female estate, because we know the prison capacity problem is in our male estate.
“We are at 98 per cent capacity in the male estate. Then we will look to repurpose, to see what we can do to free up capacity and move the estates around.”
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