The policy recommendations outlined in the sentencing review will spark a “crime wave” , the shadow justice secretary has claimed.
Robert Jenrick dismissed a series of proposals, set out in a long-awaited review commissioned by the government, that aim to reduce the prison population by as many as 9,800 people by 2028.
It is set to be the biggest overhaul of sentencing laws since the 1990s, and has been carried out by former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke.
The recommendations could see criminals who have committed violent or sexual crimes, and are sentenced to more than four years, released on parole at the halfway point. Well-behaved prisoners serving sentences of less than four years could also be released after a third of their term in a bid to free up much-needed space in overcrowded jails.
The government is considering mandatory chemical castration for the most serious sex offenders. Gauke said drugs that help “reduce sexual desire” among the offenders could cut the risk of reoffending.
The review comes after justice secretary Shabana Mahmood was forced to release thousands of prisoners in her first few weeks of government to ensure prisons did not run out of space.
Gauke has insisted the scale of the overcrowding crisis means the reforms are essential so that the justice system moves away from an “overreliance on custody”.
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But Jenrick poured scorn on the proposals, warning they could “spark a crime wave.”
Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme on Thursday morning, the shadow justice secretary admitted that the previous Conservative government did not build enough prisons.
He said: “I don’t think we did build enough prisons, but neither have any government, neither is this Labour government frankly…
“They’ve not even committed to substantially increase the number of prison places at all. What we did was strain every sinew not to release prisoners early, and by and large, we didn’t.
He added: “Instead, we deployed 1000 rapid deployment cells — these are emergency prison cells, we signed prisoner transfer agreements with foreign countries like Albania. Labour aren’t doing any of these things. In fact, they’ve paused the deployment of new rapid deployment cells, they’re not signing news deals with foreign countries, and these problems are all getting worse.”
Jenrick insisted that Labour would “absolutely not” implement the proposal around mandatory chemical castration for the most serious sex offenders.
He said: “I do not believe for one minute that Keir Starmer is going to announce that — he’s just briefed that to a newspaper [The Sun] to try and hide the fact that what he’s proposing today is deeply unpopular with the public, because this is going to spark a crime wave.
“This is a license for criminals to be out on our streets, terrorising communities, and that’s wrong. People don’t want to see this, people want to see people properly punished. Since when is a tag proper punishment, a plastic tag for goodness’ sake.”
In an interview later on Thursday, Jenrick rubbished the review as “ideological”.
He told Times Radio: “This isn’t practical government — it’s ideological. Keir Starmer, after all, handpicked a prisons minister who wanted to let two-thirds of prisoners walk free and surprise, surprise, that’s where we are.”
Outlining what the Conservative Party would do, Jenrick said: “[The government] could be introducing emergency measures to remove the 10,800 foreign national offenders who are in our prisons and need to be removed from the country.
“It could be introducing emergency measures to get our courts sitting and take advantage of the sitting hours of the Lady Chief Justice, the most senior person in the judiciary, has offered which would help to reduce the 17,800 people who are currently in prison on remand right now, and we would have supported them on those.
“But instead, these measures are actually going to put the public at risk, and they’re a get out of fail free card for criminals.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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