Record high prison recalls as criminals freed early to cut jail overcrowding

Flora Thompson and Ian Jones, Press Association

The number of criminals being recalled to prison in England and Wales has hit a 10-year high after more than 60,000 inmates were freed early to cut jail overcrowding.

Some 48,327 prisoners were put back behind bars last year after breaching the terms of their licence, according to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

This is more than double the number seen in 2015 when records began (21,467) and up 29% on 2024 (37,573).

The figures also show 60,108 inmates have been freed early since September 2024, when the Government brought in emergency measures to tackle the overcrowding crisis. The move saw the proportion of sentences that some prisoners must serve in England and Wales reduced from 50% to 40%.

The early release scheme – known as SDS40 – was among a raft of major policy changes in recent years, which is “likely” to have contributed to the rise in recalls, the MoJ said.

Press Association analysis of the data shows 54,087 of the 60,108 early releases (90.0%) were British nationals, 5,917 (9.8%) were foreign nationals and 104 (0.2%) had no nationality recorded.

The age group that made up the greatest proportion of early releases was 30 to 39-year-olds (22,484 prisoners, or 37.5%), followed by 40 to 49-year-olds (14,322, or 23.9%).

Some 17,890 prisoners released early (29.8%) were serving sentences of six months or under, with a further 8,880 (14.8%) serving sentences of between six and 12 months.

HMP Humber in Brough, near Hull, has released the highest number of inmates so far under the scheme (1,827), followed by Fosse Way in Leicester (1,646), Berwyn in Wrexham (1,608) and Parc B in Bridgend (1,361).

The prison population reached a record high of 88,521 in September 2024 and now stands at 85,704.

Other Government figures also published on Thursday show 10,487 (12.0%) of the 87,342 prisoners in custody at the end of March were foreign nationals, down from 10,838 (12.3% of the total) a year earlier.

The proportion of prisoners who are foreign nationals has remained around 12% for much of the past decade, peaking at 12.5% in June 2021.

The most common foreign nationality as of March 31 this year was Albanian, accounting for 1.1% of all prisoners, followed by Irish (0.8%), Polish (0.8%) and Romanian (0.8%).