Justice Secretary announces ‘record prison expansion’ to tackle overcrowding

Three new prisons will be built starting this year, as part of a “record prison expansion”, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said, as the Government grapples with near-full jails.

Ms Mahmood also announced a shake-up of prison recall measures which means prisoners serving between one and four years’ jail time can be returned to prison only for “a fixed 28-day period”.

A standard recall currently results in offenders being taken back to prison for the remainder of their sentence, but this can be for shorter fixed-terms in some circumstances.

The latest measures are aimed at dealing with the scale of the continuing crisis in prisons, as the latest weekly prison population in England and Wales stands at 88,087.

This is 434 below the last peak in the prison population of 88,521 inmates on September 6, recorded just before the Government began freeing thousands of prisoners early as part of efforts to curb jail overcrowding.

Amy Rees, the MoJ’s interim permanent secretary, said the Government would “run out of prison places in just five months’ time”, if further measures were not taken.

Published: 14/05/2025 by Radio NewsHub