Judges across Wales and England have been told to delay sentencing of defendants convicted of serious crimes including, rape and burglary, as a result of overcrowding in prisons across the UK.
Lord Edis, the presiding Judge for England and Wales, has ordered judges to delay sentencing from Monday. Edis said in a Court of Appeal case earlier this year that for offences that attracted shorter sentences, Judges and Magistrates should consider imposing suspended sentences given “current prison population levels” (The Guardian, 2023). The prison population has grown to over 88,000 since then, with the Crown Court sentencing hearings delayed, leaving anyone on bail free in the community or held in temporary cells in the magistrate’s courts.
This has come after the news from The Independent revealed that overcrowding prisons were nearly at breaking point with some holding 70 per cent more prisoners than their capacity should allow. Nearly two thirds of jails in England are officially overcrowded with free spaces in prisons falling to 651 this week.
Justice Ministers have also reportedly proposed releasing some prisoners early with Chief of Prison Governors, former Home Secretary Jack Straw and former Tory Prisons Minister all warned last week that early release of prisoners may have to be considered to tackle the crisis. Further pressure has come from the Prison Union who have threatened to take legal action if the Ministry of Justice asks to find extra capacity in overcrowded prisons. President of the Prison Governor’s Association Andrea Albutt said: “If the government further overcrowd our prisons, we will take legal action”.
A senior judge, who had been told to not send jail defendants on bail, expressed concerns about the call stating that their biggest worry being the defendants charged with historic rape or rape of child under 13 or other sexual assault. They said “What am I going to do if a jury finds someone guilty (of rape), Do I release that person who is now convicted back into the community, where the victim might see them? What will the victim think?” (The Independent, 2023) . It is predicted that the dilemma judges face with the Government will only worsen with estimates of a further increase in prison population, with numbers upwards of 93,100 to 106,300 by 2027. (The Independent, 2023)
To combat the problem, speaking at the Conservative party conference, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk announced plans to rent prison spaces in foreign countries to reduce pressure on prison systems in England. He went on to claim the pandemic as well as the barristers strike were possible factors for the backlog of prisoners awaiting trial and part of the reason for this unprecedented growth in the prison population. He defended the service saying, “The Prison service has already put in place measures such as rapid deployment cells and doubling up cells to manage these pressures” whilst announcing Government plans to build more prisons. These claims would reportedly be the “biggest prison building campaign since the Victorian era” and would create 20,000 new places. However, these plans have yet to come into fruition, leading to the ever-increasing anxieties regarding the status of defendants convicted of some of the serious crimes.