The Daily Mail reports that some released prisoners committed new offenses within hours of their release.
According to the Daily Mail, citing government figures, over 26,000 inmates, including those serving long sentences, have been released in the UK as part of a program intended to reduce prison overcrowding.
The Daily Mail reported on Sunday that between September 2024 and March 2025, 248 of those released had been sentenced to 14 years or more for serious offenses.
Data indicates that the majority of prisoners released under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government were British citizens, but more than 2,600 were foreign nationals.
The program, which allows some prisoners to be released after serving 40% of their sentences, has resulted in an average of 3,461 releases per month. The Daily Mail estimates that at this rate, the total number of releases could reach 45,000 in the program’s first year.
The paper claims that released prisoners thanked Starmer and pledged to be “lifelong Labour voters.” However, the report also states that some committed new crimes shortly after being freed.
A Justice Ministry spokesman stated that the Labor government “had no choice but to take decisive action to stop prisons overflowing and leave police unable to make arrests” because the previous Conservative government had left the UK’s prisons in a critical state.
“We are building 14,000 prison places and reforming sentencing so jails never run out of space again,” the spokesman added.
Tory justice spokesman Robert Jenrick described the number of released criminals as “shocking,” stating that it explained “why Britain feels lawless.” He told the Daily Mail that the British public is “sick of soft justice.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claimed last month that the UK’s crime rate has increased by 50% since the 1990s and that the country is “facing societal collapse” as a consequence.
According to Interior Ministry figures, knife crime in England and Wales increased by 87% in the last decade, with almost 55,000 incidents occurring in 2024 alone. A study in July suggested that the UK now accounts for 39% of all mobile phone thefts in Europe.
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