Prisoners leave HMP Durham as thousands released early today

Thousands are being released early on Tuesday (September 10) before their full sentences are served in a bid to ease overcrowding in jails nationwide as the prisons watchdog warned it is “inevitable” some will reoffend.

Downing Street said the policy had to be brought in to avoid “unchecked criminality” where the police and courts are unable to lock anyone up because there were no places available.

People outside HMP Durham. (Image: PA)

It will see the minimum amount of a jail term served before release fall from 50% to 40% as the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said overcrowding had pushed jails to the “point of collapse”.

At HMP Durham pictures showed inmates walking free.

(Image: PA)

Among them, former Hollywood actor Jason Hoganson jailed for 18 months in August for attacking his ex in the street last December posed for a photo with his thumbs up.

Jason Hoganson is released from prison. (Image: PA)

The prison in Durham City had room for just one more prisoner in July, official statistics show. It had a population of 984 when its operational capacity is 985.

The latest releases are in addition to the around 1,000 inmates normally freed each week.

Karl Hughes (front) leaves HMP Durham. (Image: PA)

Some being freed could temporarily be housed in hotels, the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told MPs on Tuesday.

She added: “I have authorised probation directors to make use of alternative arrangements including budget hotels as a temporary measure, for the cases that we will see in the next few weeks.”

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The Government said those convicted of sex offences, terrorism, domestic abuse and violent crimes would not be freed early under the scheme.

Andrea Coomber KC, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said prisons and probation needed to be completely reset after she described the “woeful education and training” for inmates and “squalor, self-harm, drugs, violence and unmet mental health needs, all in the midst of severe overcrowding”.

Hundreds more prisoners are due to be freed early next month in the second stage of the scheme. But the Government is under pressure to find longer-term solutions to the problem, with prison figures warning without further measures the same problem could be faced in about a year’s time.