We are now relying on justice by logistics, not just deserts. That’s how Ian Acheson - former head of security at HMP Wandsworth - put it to me.
I spoke to him last night as the country braced for the early release of 1,700 prisoners, a hospital pass handed to Labour by the outgoing Tories amid the ongoing decay of the prisons estate.
Acheson was blunt. He told me that things were dire. The Tories, he said, had manifestly failed to invest in having the prison population today that was predicted years ago. They knew this was coming, but they never prepared for it. Rather, they made things worse, shutting down clinks across the country.
But the move to get prisoners out after 40 per cent of their sentences was, in his view, “the worst solution apart from all the alternatives.”
Charlie Peters reported live from HMP Wandsworth this morning
GB NewsIn his classically frank style, he continued: “Risk to the prison system is reduced but risk to the public is increased.
"The arrangements have been hasty, the probation service is on its knees and it is inevitable unfortunately that people will be harmed by reoffending that otherwise would not have happened.”
But even with all of this misery in mind, the scenes I witnessed when I turned up at HMP Wandsworth at 6am awaiting the first dawn releases still stunned me.
It was a party. Eight-seater SUV taxis rocked up, paid in cash, with friends of those set to be released arriving with bottles of champagne to celebrate the early release oftheir mates.
Clad in hoodies, balaclavas, and the odd Covid-era mask, they stood by the gates blaring music as the first of the fresh releases made their way out.
The first of their pals exited soon after 9, just after I’d finished updating our audience on the early release scheme, and my camera operator and I hurried around to take a look and how they’d react.
They greeted him as a long-lost brother, lighting spliffs and sharing drinks in the street.
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Friends of prisoners were waiting to celebrate their release
GB NewsThey were watched on by plainclothes police officers waiting to make a gate arrest - when a prisoner is released before immediately being detained on suspicion of further offences investigated while they were in custody.
The footage later of champagne corks popping and celebrations in the street stunned our viewers and listeners.
Some of the language on GB News' Your Say was especially strong. And you can understand why, they were making a mockery of English justice, parading their victory over the prison system and immediately clamouring about the glory of their criminality.
Some of the boys in the huddle showed me footage they’d captured on Snapchat when they were inside Wandsworth, smoking drugs and using mobile phones. They enjoyed lawlessness inside bars just as much as they did while freemen.
Reacting to the spray of champagne, Acheson was apoplectic: “If you want to see what the humiliation of the state looks like, here it is. A legacy of a lunatic ideological vandalism of the prison and probation service we all warned against via rank planning incompetence.”
No prisons, no upgraded cells, crumbling walls, squalid conditions… the system is well and truly in disarray.
And the probation service that awaits them is in tatters as well. Just two of the 12 probation regions in England and Wales are satisfactory, according to the inspectorate.
Around 1,700 prisoners were released early
PAThey have a recruitment shortage of 2,000 officers. Plenty of new recruits leave the service within a year.
Former prisoners are struggling to find settled accommodation, work and training, and indeed purpose after the pain of imprisonment.
It’s meant to be a period of rehabilitation, but with the cramped and criminal conditions of Victorian-era hellholes like Wandsworth, few criminals are coming out ready for a life of liberty.
I spoke to several recently freed convicts who were delighted with their freedom, but also a couple of ex-lags who looked lost.
One told me bluntly that he wished he hadn’t been freed. Three meals a day, a bed, and a roof above his head. Now he feared sleeping on a park bench.
No matter who you are - victim of crime, struggling prisoner trying to change or their probation officer - today’s early release is a day of a disaster.