British prisons are on the brink of exploding. A total of 87,543 prisoners are serving sentences in England and Wales, while the maximum capacity is 88,864. The 1,411 vacant spaces could be filled by August 1, creating a situation of total collapse of the prison system and causing alarm for public safety.
"The situation is alarming, much worse than we imagined," declared Prime Minister Keir Starmer. "We are facing a serious and unforgivable irresponsibility of the Conservative Government," added the Labour leader, forced to dust off his old role as Attorney General.
The situation is so urgent that the second major measure of his government, after burying the Rwanda plan to deport immigrants, is the imminent reform of the prison system to alleviate the explosive situation in prisons.
Among the emergency measures planned by the Secretary of Justice, Shabana Mahmood, is the reduction of sentence time by 40% for less serious crimes, which could result in the release of up to 20,000 prisoners in the coming months.
Experts believe that this "short-term" solution will alleviate the problem by the end of the year. "The underlying problem is that there are too many people behind bars," recently stated James Timpson, the new Prisons Undersecretary, known for his work in employing former convicts as an entrepreneur.
Starmer himself has acknowledged that what has happened is "the result of negligence over many years", in the context of the deterioration of public services by successive Tory Governments. His challenge now will be to address prison overcrowding while trying to tackle the increase in violence and public insecurity in British cities.