New UK prison crisis: Unrest leads to fears of overcrowding | Prisons and probation

The English prison system is facing a new crisis this week: numerous suspected criminals are being released on bail and do not have to be brought to their court hearings.

With hundreds of rioters incarcerated, prisons are now at capacity, forcing the UK Prison and Probation Service to prepare Operation Early Dawn, an emergency plan to prevent prisoners from being taken to court from police cells unless there is space available in the prison.

Anyone who appears in court and receives a prison sentence may end up in prison hundreds of miles from home.

More than 300 people accused of crimes related to the unrest following the Southport attack have so far been remanded in custody, and the number is expected to rise rapidly as police leaders promise to track down perpetrators “for as long as necessary”.

The observer expects prison operations to begin this week, after having been used for several days in March when prison capacity previously reached critical levels

An internal document states that prison staff conduct daily assessments to determine how many prisoners held by police can be taken to their scheduled court hearings and how many must be released on bail and whose cases are delayed due to lack of space in the prisons.

Officials are triaging prisoners in police custody to reserve as many inmates as possible for trial based on the severity of the crimes they are accused of, and are adjusting plans based on new capacity information from across the prison system.

Sources said Operation Early Dawn is necessary because resources are running out under a long-running contingency plan called Operation Safeguard, which involves holding prisoners in up to 200 police cells for a night before transferring them to prison custody.

Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Prison Guards' Association, said there were only 340 places left in adult male prisons suitable for accommodating rioters.

“The prison population has increased massively every week. This is one of the biggest increases I have ever seen,” he added.

“The northwest and northeast are the choke points, that's where the worst unrest was. So it's possible that the rioters will end up in the southwest or southeast. The rioters shouldn't expect to be put in jail right on their doorstep. They'll go wherever there's space, and if they don't like it – tough luck.”

Fairhurst warned that while Labour had announced a new early release program that is expected to lead to the release of thousands of prisoners, it would not come into force until next month.

“What we're worried about is the next three weeks,” he said. “It's going to be really, really tight, these unrests are coming at a bad time.”

The number of people being brought to justice for their involvement in the unrest is rising rapidly, with a total of 677 charges brought and 1,117 arrests recorded since July 29.
Chief Constable BJ Harrington, the national police chief for public order, said police would continue to identify and arrest people involved in the unrest “for as long as necessary”.

“The relentless focus on bringing people to justice will not change,” he added. “There is no place to hide, we are after the people.”

Harrington said there would likely be fewer arrests once the unrest died down, but that investigations would continue for many months as officials identified perpetrators behind anonymous social media accounts and traced masked rioters back to the moments before they covered their faces using hours of video footage.

“The number of arrests will inevitably fall and some of these investigations will take longer,” he added. “Some of these require forensic downloading of phones and detailed evidence and it may take some time to build the case.”

Harrington rejected allegations that far-right protesters were being disproportionately punished due to the “two-tier police force,” saying: “We are not against protests, we are against crime. The police will deal with things that are unlawful and violent.”

He said claims that police had been more lenient towards pro-Palestinian and environmental protests were false, adding: “They didn't set fire to hotels, they didn't throw bricks. This is not two-tier policing, it's about managing threat, risk and harm.”

Many of the defendants who have appeared so far have pleaded guilty and were quickly sentenced. However, over 150 cases are scheduled for trial in the Crown Court. This has created an immense backlog that has already led to cases being scheduled until 2027.

Michelle Heeley KC, who represents barristers practising in the Midlands, said the cases had so far been heard at an “unprecedented speed”.

“Judges are currently putting in place protocols to move people from the Peace Court to the Crown Court within a matter of days,” she added. “There is a great emphasis on speedy justice, the likes of which we have not seen since the 2011 Troubles, but if there are guilty pleas and trials, it will take longer.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The primary responsibility of this government is to keep the public safe. The new Lord Chancellor has taken steps to ensure that the justice system is always able to lock up dangerous offenders, protect the public and reduce reoffending.”

“Operation Early Dawn is not active and we will notify the public when it is activated.”