The public mostly support building more prisons, and releasing foreign offenders early for deportation
While the government’s new prisoner early release rules are set to come into effect on 1 October, YouGov polling for The Times in mid-August has shown that almost two thirds (64%) think the government is wrong to allow early releases.
Now a new YouGov survey shows how the public feels about the government’s incoming and proposed measures to try and ease the prisons crisis, alongside others that have previously been mooted.
The government’s proposal to reduce the proportion of their sentence that some more serious offenders will have to serve in prison from 67% to 50% is opposed by 82% of Britons. This is in fact the highest level of opposition that any of 14 proposals garnered.
Likewise, 61% are opposed to reducing the proportion of their sentence that less serious offenders have to serve in prison from 40-50% to 33%.
Meanwhile, a recent proposal from Reform UK to rent prison space overseas is more divisive, with 40% of Britons in favour but 41% against.
The public’s two clearest preferences for resolving the prison space crisis are building more prisons (81% support), and releasing foreign nationals early so they can be deported (78%). Not only do these measures have high levels of overall support, but they also have notably more ‘strong support’ than other proposals, with 48% strongly supporting the former and 41% the latter.
By contrast, while 76% support allowing lower risk offenders to be moved to lower security open prisons, only 15% feel strongly about this.
The only other proposal that the majority of Britons support is allowing lower risk offenders to be moved to lower security open prisons, at 54%, although there is also net support for increasing the length of a sentence that can be suspended from three years to five years, which 43% support but 36% oppose.
Who should be excluded from early release?
As part of the changing rules, prisoners serving four or more years for specified violent crimes will see their early release point change from two thirds of the way through their sentence to half way, while those imprisoned for other eligible violent offences, sentence of less than four years are seeing a reduction from 40-50% of their sentence behind bars to 33%.
However, the public think that those who commit violent offences should not be eligible for early release in the first place, with little relatively regard to the length of the sentence. While 84% of Britons say those convicted of violent crimes and sentenced to more than seven years should not be eligible, 79% still agree if the sentence is between 4-7 years, and 71% likewise feel the same even if the sentence is less than four years.
When it comes to more specific crimes, 86% say murderers should not be eligible for early release, 85% for sexual offences and 79% of domestic abuse related crimes.
These figures drop dramatically for less serious crimes, although the 49% who say burglars should not be eligible for early release still outweigh the 36% who think they should.
Only between 23-33% think criminal damage, cyber crime, fraud, shoplifting and non-violent drug offences should not be eligible for early release.
Who is responsible for the prison space shortages?
When we last asked about early release in mid-July 2024 – just a couple of weeks into Keir Starmer’s time in office – 49% of Britons said the Tories were most responsible for the shortage of prison spaces, while 2% said Labour and 32% both equally.
Now that scale has tipped over to ‘both equally’, with 45% laying the issue at both parties’ door. Only one in three (32%) now primarily blame the Tories, although still only 5% think this is mostly Labour’s problem.
Separate recent YouGov polling for Sky News found that 30% of Britons think Andy Burnham has been handling the plans to release some prisoners well. While still outweighed by the number of Britons who think he is doing badly (45%), he does have net support among Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters.
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Photo: Getty