Prisoner release: Andy Burnham’s difficult choices

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has narrowed the early-release rules under the Sentencing Act 2026, deciding rapists and those convicted of serious child sex and grooming offences will not qualify. The Conversation reports the change follows public backlash, including from the family of Thames Valley Police officer Andrew Harper, killed in 2019. As a result, around five thousand prisoners will be released from October rather than the six thousand originally expected, though domestic abusers and those convicted of manslaughter remain eligible. Burnham says he wanted to go further, but with prisons in England and Wales holding roughly eighty-six thousand inmates against a safe capacity nearer eighty-two thousand, he warned the system risks reaching capacity and collapsing.

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