A minister has admitted the government cannot guarantee the safety of domestic abuse survivors as it prepares to release hundreds of prisoners early to ease overcrowding, reports BritPanorama.
Around 4,500 prisoners are scheduled to be released in stages over the next year in a bid to manage chronic prison overcrowding and prevent the justice system from collapsing. Approximately 700 offenders are set to leave English and Welsh jails on Thursday.
Notably, criminals convicted of rape and the most serious child sex offences will be exempt from release. Those guilty of manslaughter will also be excluded after public outcry over the potential release of offenders in high-profile cases.
However, many domestic abusers remain eligible for release, prompting a warning from domestic abuse commissioner Dame Nicole Jacobs that survivors across the country will be “looking over their shoulder and living in fear because the government and our criminal justice system has failed to protect them.”
Asked whether he could guarantee the safety of domestic abuse survivors, Treasury secretary James Murray said: “I can’t guarantee exactly what will happen, but I can tell people that we have done everything we can to reduce the number of people being released as far as possible.”
“And when people are released, they don’t get freedom. They are electronically tagged, there are restrictions on where they can go, exclusion zones about where they can attend. They are very limited in what they can do and that’s an important reassurance, which I know won’t go as far as people want to reassure them, but I hope it offers some indication of how seriously we are taking this,” he added.
Dame Nicole Jacobs stated many survivors are now “being forced to make their own plans to protect themselves, including uprooting their lives, because they simply do not trust that sufficient safeguards are in place to manage their abuser safely in the community.”
She criticized the government’s preparedness, saying, “It is frankly shameful that as the scheme begins—which ministers have had months to prepare for—I still have no assurance that the danger perpetrators pose has been properly considered and assessed with meaningful input from victims and the specialist services supporting them.”
Alice Russell-Harris, public affairs lead at the charity Refuge, warned that the failure to exempt domestic abusers from early release would compromise survivor safety. She stated, “Although perpetrators may be released with licence conditions, including electronic tagging and restriction zones, we know that licence conditions are frequently breached by perpetrators, and we are concerned that an under-resourced probation service will not respond swiftly enough to keep survivors from further harm.”
She added that some survivors “may have no alternative than to seek emergency refuge accommodation away from their place of residence,” with these services already under immense pressure.
Victims’ commissioner Claire Waxman remarked that “confidence being projected by government is not yet matched by the reality on the ground.”
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has insisted that offenders will be released under the “toughest supervision in British history.” New restriction zones will be established to control the movements of the highest-risk sexual and violent offenders, confining many to an area just a few miles wide, according to government statements.
