Early release plans backfire for Labour

  • Post last modified:September 26, 2024
  • Reading time:8 mins read


It has come to light that the Labour Party government accidentally released 37 prisoners who were serving sentences for breaching restraining orders. They were all released in error under the governments new SDS40 early prison release scheme. Yet again, the government is failing victims of domestic abuse and coercive control:

Early release scheme

SDS40 is the Labour new scheme which allows them to release prisoners after serving only 40% of their prison sentence. This is instead of the usual 50%. They are expecting to release 5,500 offenders early in order to ease the prison overcrowding crisis. An official government impact assessment stated that they would exclude the following offences from the scheme:

a. an offence in the Sexual Offences Act 1956;
b. an offence in the Sexual Offences Act 2003;
c. a sexual offence listed in Schedule 15 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003;
d. a sentence of 4 years or more for a violent offence in Schedule 15 to the Criminal
Justice Act 2003;
e. stalking offences in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997;
f. controlling and coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship in the
Serious Crime Act 2015;
g. non-fatal strangulation and suffocation in the Serious Crime Act 2015;
h. breach of a restraining order in the Sentencing Act 2020;
i. breach of a non-molestation order in the Family Law Act 1996;
j. breach of a Domestic Abuse Protection Order in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021

Previously, Nicole Jacobs – the Domestic Abuse Commissioner – along with domestic abuse charities had called on the government to exempt perpetrators of domestic abuse from the early release scheme.

Probation services were already making survivors of these types of crimes face a severe lack of communication when dealing with the criminal justice system. So discovering their abusers were released early is the last thing they needed.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed that they accidentally released dozens of prisoners convicted of breaching restraining orders. They suggested that the mistake was due to them logging offences incorrectly.

According to the BBC, the MoJ said they had returned the majority to prison. Meanwhile, the police are working “urgently” to locate the rest. Clearly, this is yet another huge failure for Keir Starmer’s government:

A flawed system

Earlier this month, sources from within the probation services revealing serious loopholes within the Labour early release policy.

According to Channel 4 News, some prisoners serving consecutive sentences where the end date takes into account a sentence for a less serious offence would qualify for SDS40 and be released sooner than was set at the point of conviction. This means that if they convicted someone of a domestic abuse offence in addition to a drink driving offence, the second offence would quality under SDS40.

So once they had served the first part of their sentence, they would qualify for early release even if their victim was informed they still had several years left on their sentence. This has the potential to put victims of these types of crimes in extreme levels of danger. 

At the start of September, Jacobs issued a statement which included:

I worry that it might not be possible for every victim to be notified of their abuser’s release and I fear they may be left blindsided, without the time to seek vital support and guidance.

I have made it clear to Government that to safeguard victims, all offenders with a known history of domestic abuse must be exempt from this scheme.

For many victims, their perpetrator’s imprisonment is a critical period of respite, where they can make plans for their safety and their future.

In an updated statement this week, she also stated:

Anyone who breaches a restraining order is likely to be a high risk individual who may be fixated on their victim, undeterred by legal restrictions that have been put in place.

This kind of error is why I have called on Government to exclude all perpetrators of domestic abuse from the SDS40 scheme, regardless of their conviction.

Probation should not rely on an individual’s index offence to determine risk but use local intelligence to understand if there is a history of abuse and exempt them from early release on that basis.

Putting survivors at risk

Both men and women experience domestic abuse and sexual offences. However, there are huge differences between violence against women girls and violence against men.

Specifically, the amount, severity and impact. According to Women’s Aid, men victimise women at much higher rates and are far more likely to seriously hurt or kill them, compared to female perpetrators.

Men are also more likely to subject women to coercive or controlling behaviours. For women, domestic abuse is deeply embedded in inequalities between women and men. Men do not experience domestic abuse as part of structural inequalities against their sex:

The government is releasing violent criminals early, while simultaneously banging up climate protesters.

Clearly they are only concerned with lining the deep capitalist pockets of their new fancy suits. Activists challenging this status quo are the only threat – hence Starmer wants them behind bars, but when it comes to violent perpetrators of crimes against women, he doesn’t give a shit.

This is very much shown by the MoJ’s blasé ‘we’re looking for the rest of them’.

Clearly, the government thinks that easing prison overcrowding is more important than women and girls who are most impacted by these types of crimes.

Feature image via the Canary





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