The government has this morning announced emergency measures to ease prison overcrowding by re-activating Operation Early Dawn.
Through this mechanism, offenders will be summoned to a magistrates’ court only when it is confirmed that a cell in the prison estate is ready for them, should they then be remanded into custody. Instead they will be held in a police station until they are summoned to court.
Operation Early Dawn was previously used by the last Conservative government in May.
Today’s announcement about retaining people in police station cells for longer before their court appearances in a further indicator of the balance of prisoners at different stages within the justice system. The Prison Governors Association has suggested that around 18,000 of the 88,000 people in custody in the UK, are either convicted and yet un-sentenced or who are on remand awaiting trial.
This latest announcement comes as prosecutors have been working to fast-track the cases of those involved in the recent riots seen across the UK, with just under five hundred people so far charged in relation to those disturbances. The sentencing of these offenders has caused a significant spike in new ‘prison receptions’.
Defending this morning’s announcement, the Prisons and Probation Minister, Lord Timpson, said, “We inherited a justice system in crisis and exposed to shocks. As a result, we have been forced into making difficult but necessary decisions to keep it operating”.
This latest measure to tackle prison overcrowding follows an announcement last month by the new government that it would be temporarily reducing the proportion of certain custodial sentences served in prison from 50% to 40%. These measures, which come into force in September and October, will exclude those sentenced for terrorism, sex offences, and serious violent offences of four years or more.
Speaking this morning on the BBC Radio 4’Today’ programme, Tom Franklin, Chief Executive of the Magistrates Association, “This is no surprise that this has come about today. The justice system is lurching from crisis to crisis and has been for years now, and often unseen by the public”.
Continuing he said, “One of the side effects of the civil disorder over the past weeks is that it has bought into public consciousness, the importance of a well run, well funded justice system for public well being”.
Sir Keir Starmer is today visiting Northern Ireland, one part of the UK, that has seen some of the worst rioting violence this summer.
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