The NPCC have warned the new relaxed sentencing rules will cause a surge of 400,000 more crimes across England and Wales.
Under the controversial new Sentencing Act 2026, the Government are releasing 4,500 offenders early to reduce prison numbers. 700 were already released at the start of this month.
But the prisoner early release scheme is just the tip of the iceberg for crime and justice. The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) expect the early release scheme and (even more) relaxed sentencing to result in between 4% – 6% more crimes.
In this ‘stats corner’ blog, I explore the impacts to policing and public safety, including:
- The extra 400,000 crimes formally expected from the changes
- How the early release of 4,500 offenders works
- What the policing associations, victim groups, and the public think about this
- Key hidden details behind this crime-inducing act
- Why the Government have created the Sentencing Act 2026
All Parties Agree: New Sentencing Act 2026 Will Trigger Crime Wave
While the early prisoner release scheme hit the headlines, there’s far more in this new Sentencing Act 2026 that is expected by all parties to cause significantly increased crime. Most in the public and policing are instinctively against such measures that will unanimously cause thousands more crimes in their area.
What crimes are eligible for the more relaxed sentencing and early release? Most crimes other than the most serious are eligible for these new measures to ease prison population. Think PIP1 volume crimes, like theft, sex offences, domestic abuse, violence, criminal damage, and so on.
Excluded are the more serious crimes of homicide, rape, child sex offences, fatal driving offences, or life sentences. Earlier plans had planned to include some of these before extensive backlash caused revisions earlier this year. Here’s the Government’s full list of specific exclusions.
The NPCC’s own analysis expects a 4% to 6% increase in crime. They don’t declare the scale of the crime volume. However, taking a middling 5% figure from their forecast and comparing that to latest annual crime stats, that means…
- 336,000 extra police-recorded crimes (baseline ~6.7 million), as per police recorded crime stats.
- 480,000 extra public-experienced crimes (baseline ~9.6 million), as per Crime Survey for England and Wales.
So somewhere between 336,000 – 480,000 extra crimes, depending on how you prefer to count them (hence a middling 400,000 in this blog). For the distribution of police-recorded crime, expect an extra 45,000 offences in the Met Police, then another 6,000 – 7,000 or so on average for BTP and each of the other 42 forces in England and Wales.
“We are expecting that, whilst the programmes in the community are being ramped up by the probation service as part of the implementation plan to support offenders to rehabilitate, we expect, certainly in the short term, there will be an increase of offending.” – Jason Devonport, NPCC lead for Criminal Justice reform
Those crimes will largely come from reoffending of released prisoners and suspended sentencing for under 12 months. The MoJ’s own Proven Reoffending Statistics shows that two-thirds of offenders with sentences under 12 months reoffend. Each offender on average commits just over 5 crimes. And these are just for solved crimes, taken to and proven at court.
The reoffending is already taking its toll in the first week. One early release prisoner committed 11 crimes in just 5 days since his release. There will be plenty more stories like this across the country as the known impact to crime and policing becomes realised.
Despite knowing it will lead to hundreds of thousands of more crimes, along with the associated burden of investigation demand for forces, the NPCC are once again overtly supportive of government plans. As they were for the police reform agenda, the leadership commission recommendations, police degrees, and other controversial reforms to policing in recent years.
“We’ve all been in policing long enough to know that some of the things that help people stop offending or desist from offending are not going to be resolved by short sentences in particular. So that’s a fundamental reason why we’re supportive of this.” – Gavin Stephens QPM, NPCC Chair
It seems the only people who are claiming there won’t be increased crime are the Government imposing these laws.
“The reforms will put public protection and cutting crime at the heart of the justice system…” – MoJ Sentencing Act Impact Assessment
Other Policing Perspectives on Relaxed Sentences…
It’s common knowledge that soft sentencing does no good for reducing crime, especially among police officers doing the hard work bringing charges to court. Such actions even undermine both the first and last of the 9 Peelian Principles, so avidly referenced and revisited as justification for the planned police reforms agenda…
- 1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
- 9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
The Police Superintendents Association (PSA) lambasted the scheme from a legitimacy perspective, while warning this will cost policing around £480 million to deal with the demands. Local Police Federations have also spoken out.
“The early release scheme does nothing to instill confidence in the criminal justice system within the general public, and it is likely that police will face the brunt of this as the visible side of this system. This loss of confidence will be hard to turn around.”
The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) were more reserved about the changes, emphasising the importance of the new restrictions on prisoners released working well to prevent the anticipated resulting criminal activity. The APCC joint leads on Criminal Justice also criticised the scheme in their formal statement, seeming to summarise the wider sentiment for those in the public and policing who are interested in justice:
“Early release from a prison sentence must not be automatic, but should be earned by an offender following appropriate rehabilitation.” – APCC statement
So how are the preventative measures relating to the first batch of automatic early releases going? Things aren’t looking promising.
There’s already been a blunder over tagging those released in the first wave last week. The Justice Secretary Alex Norris doesn’t know how many of the 700 had been fitted with the monitoring devices, something many might wonder why this isn’t sorted as soon as they leave the prison.
This is one of those privatised functions of public service contracted to Serco for a cool £200 million. The outsourced tagging model, and Serco’s role within it, has already faced sharp criticism from HM Inspectorate of Probation, parliamentary watchdog committees, and local officials. And the under-staffed Probation Service and Probation officers themselves have long warned about their ability to manage this new surge of demand.
Further, the Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley this week stated how the Met are dealing with 100 breaches of conditions per day from electronically tagged offenders. Then the courts simply give “zero sanctions” by re-bailing 95% of them, rather than sending people back to prison.
The law-abiding public and hard-working police officers bringing offenders to justice may be further disheartened at the sort of quotes news outlets are reporting from released individuals themselves. Such anecdotes reinforce and provide more detail on the attitudes behind the overall criminality statistics.
“Prisoners thanked the prime minister as they celebrated walking free from jail on Thursday. One told the press as he left HMP Durham: ‘Justice system, what justice system? Thank you, Andy Burnham.’ A prisoner released from HMP Cardiff after being jailed for burglary said he would ‘probably be back in the next month or two’.” – The Guardian
Victim groups have been particularly scathing and concerned about the Sentencing Act changes, warning of a further loss of trust in the justice system and resulting in setbacks to confidence in the reporting of crime. The Victims Commissioner for England and Wales wrote an open letter to Ministers over concerns about how it “compromises public safety and deeply damages public trust”.
Why Release Prisoners Early and Relax Sentences?
Given the backlash from victims, the public and front line policing groups, and even the mass of extra crimes the NPCC predict, it’s reasonable to question why on Earth this potential car crash for public confidence is happening.
“I know the level of concern and maybe anger will be intense, and it’s worth me making clear that this is not a situation where there is any good solution – there’s just a series of very difficult choices we’ve got to take.” – James Murray, Treasury Minister
Why has the Sentencing Act been introduced? Put simply, it is to manage prison overpopulation through more relaxed sentences and early release, then manage the fallout of that with more stringent management of offenders in the community.
Successive governments have chosen not to invest in prison capacity to meet the growing population. While capacity has grown from a slump in 2021, as I demonstrate in the above graph depicting Ministry of Justice published data, so too has the demand. This has led to what the Justice Secretary Alex Norris MP described as a “prison capacity crisis”.
The Government’s own Sentencing Act Impact Assessment states that not introducing the Act would lead to a “complete breakdown of law and order”. The Impact Assessment states that the cost to probation services of the change is “modest” at £2.4m.
It makes no assessment of the impact or cost of the expected increase in crime the measures will unleash on the public. And rubbing salt in the wound for victims’ groups, it only fleetingly mentions the impact to victim confidence in the system as a mere “non-monetised cost” applicable to only “some victims”.
“Some victims may consider a suspended sentence to be an insufficient punishment compared to an immediate custodial sentence.” – MoJ Sentencing Act Impact Assessment
Rather than build more capacity quickly (e.g. as the Nightingale Hospital scheme proved could be done under Covid, albeit they were barely ever used), the quick fix instead has been to drastically reduce the imprisonment of convicted criminals via the Sentencing Act 2026 legislation.
As at the end of August, there were 86,843 prisoners, against a capacity of nearly 89,000, so operating at nearly 98% capacity. For the past 15 years, prisons have perennially been at between 96% to 99% capacity, with a slight easing in the past two years. Some may therefore question the sudden declaration of crisis as justification for a raft of controversial legislation to relax sentencing.
As the BBC report, the justification ultimately comes from modelled future scenarios and assumptions made in 2025.
By 2030, the MoJ expects a prison population of 100,000, rising to over 103,900 by the end of 2032. The Government has pledged a target of building 14,000 new prison places by 2031. However, this is only forecast by the MoJ to increase capacity by 10,000, to 98,900 in 2032; presumably because of anticipated prison closures during that time. Such demand would therefore soon outstrip capacity, if forecasts and pledges are to be trusted.
The effect of the Sentencing Act is to limit the modelled growth in prison population to below that of the modelled growth in prison places. These models predict a continuation of the current long-term status quo of prisons operating at near-capacity.
“The prison population is projected to increase by an average of 3,000 annually over the coming years, exceeding the number of prison places that will be available despite the increase in supply. Without intervention, there would be catastrophic consequences for the criminal justice system. If our prisons overflow, courts would be forced to suspend trials, police would have to stop making arrests and the system’s ability to uphold justice would be compromised.” – MoJ Annual Statement on Prison Capacity 2025
The MoJ’s Model Rap Sheet: A Repeat Offender to Reality
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra
To recap: The prison population has perennially been at >95% capacity for 15 years, but it’s now suddenly a crisis because statistical models declare it’s going to get intolerably worse within 5 years, despite 14,000 prison places being built within 5 years. I’ll let you make sense of that.
But can these doom mongering models be trusted? What is the MoJ’s track record for predicting prison population?
It seems these 2025 models are already being undermined by reality playing out. The real prison population is already well under that projected under both their ‘worst case’ (without these reforms) and ‘best case’ (with the reforms) scenarios. Demand ‘should have’ already outstripped supply by now and the 1 October early release of prisoners aren’t even featured on this chart.
That’s quite a swing and a miss. But wait, there’s more…
The MoJ’s equivalent statistical projections compiled in just 2023 are even less accurate; they forecast prison population to be at 102,200… by August 2026! Just a reminder, their 2025 faltering forecasts don’t expect such numbers until 2031.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli
Has the situation been monitored and revisited? No, the Sentencing Act was enacted knowing full well that prior models were bunkum, and with evidence showing the latest 2025 “crisis modelling” falling into worse disrepair than HMP Dartmoor.
Time will tell whether those pledged prison places will be built, or whether the Sentencing Act was the end goal itself, using scary-looking ‘garbage in, garbage out’ (GIGO) modelling projections as justification for the unpopular parts.
Projecting future scenarios of doom is something governments are becoming increasingly well-versed with in recent years, giving enough political cover to push through deeply unpopular agendas or policies. In these scenarios, officials argue that hypothetical future crises outweigh the immediate downsides of their policies.
“These [Sentencing Act 2026] reforms are expected to reduce the prison population by around 7,500 by February 2028, while keeping the public safe and improving outcomes for victims.” – MoJ
By insisting these measures are necessary to avoid a hypothetical future prison population crisis, it seems the Government is choosing instead to create a very real crisis of confidence in the criminal justice system for victims and the public, right here and now.
With GIGO in mind, let’s now explore the devil in the details, beyond the headlines of what exactly this Sentencing Act will entail…
What Does the Sentencing Act 2026 Include?
The Sentencing Act 2026 introduces a sweeping overhaul of the justice system in England and Wales to relieve severe prison overcrowding. This means relaxed sentences and early release of prisoners to free up jail spaces, then “the toughest restrictions ever” to try and prevent reoffending when offenders are in the community.
I cover key highlights in the infographic above and of course you’re welcome to read the details for yourself. In short, there’s much more than meets the eye, with the mainstream media focus being on the early releases from prison.
On the early release and custody changes…
- Earlier Release Points: Reduces the time eligible adults on Standard Determinate Sentences spend behind bars. Standard release points drop from 40% or half to one-third of the sentence, while serious violent/sexual terms drop from two-thirds to one-half.
- Stricter Recall Penalties: Increases the standard Fixed Term Recall (FTR) penalty from 14/28 days to a strict 56 days in custody if a released offender breaches their licence terms.
- IPP Licence Reform: Shortens the qualifying period for the Parole Board to consider terminating Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) licences down to two years.
- Curfew Changes: Home Detention Curfew (HDC) is routinely removed for standard determinate sentences.
This early release scheme goes much further than the 2024 early release trial under Kier Starmer’s tenure. 4,500 offenders will be released early in 10 tranches between October 2026 and June 2027. The first 700 were already released on the 1st of October.
Around 70,000 (80%) of the 87,499 prisoners as at 28 September were eligible for the scheme. Following the first tranche release, the population has now reduced to 86,779 as of 5 October.
The sentencing and bail reforms will place the most strain on communities and policing…
- Short Sentence Presumption: Establishes a strict statutory directive forcing courts to suspend prison sentences of 12 months or less. So no prison if the “prison sentence” is less than a year.
- Expanded Suspended Sentences: Broadens the maximum window that a suspended sentence can cover from two years up to three years.
- Longer Sentence Deferrals: Doubles the maximum timeframe a court can defer passing a sentence from six months to 12 months to encourage community-based rehabilitation.
- Bail Act Restrictions: Restricts the use of custody remands for adult defendants who are not facing an immediate, inevitable prison sentence.
The new community and licence controls will place the biggest burden on the Probation Service and aims to minimise the criminal disruption caused by the relaxed sentencing. On paper, it truly is restrictive…
- Daily Life Prohibitions: Empowers courts and the Ministry of Justice to enforce strict new bans as part of community orders or release licences, including driving bans, public event bans (e.g., concerts, football matches), and pub/bar entry bans.
- Digital Restriction Zones: Authorises the use of electronic tags to geo-fence an offender’s physical movements using strict exclusion boundaries.
- Universal Drug Testing: Expands the statutory powers of the Probation Service to universally drug-test any offender currently out on a release licence.
- Unlimited Probation Days: Removes the requirement for judges to cap the maximum number of Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR) days, giving probation officers absolute operational discretion.
Then there comes some financial and immigration related penalties upon offenders…
- Income Reduction Orders: Implements a system where financial penalties are calculated and scaled directly against an offender’s disposable income.
- Fast-Track Deportation: Tightens border enforcement by triggering automatic deportation liability for any foreign national handed a suspended sentence of 12 months or more.
Coming back to victims, the Government have at least published a Guide for Victims about the prison release arrangements, refreshed on 1 October. They’ve even created an easy-read version in the style of a children’s book with small words, big writing and cartoons. I doubt many people even knew the guide existed; there was no fanfare. However, even for the few who may have stumbled across the guidance, I’m not sure they will avert the crisis in confidence the Act is creating…
“Whilst these [serious] offences are excluded, the release date for an offender might still change if they are serving sentences for other [less serious] offences. For example, if someone is serving 5 years for rape and 5 years for assault consecutively, whilst their release date for rape will not change, they might be released earlier than planned because the assault sentence will be subject to the Progression Model.” – MoJ Guidance to Victims
So, Rape is excluded from these early release changes… unless they committed a lesser offence too, then they can get out early on that loophole regardless.
As an aspiring police leader, what are your views on all this?
How are you expected or how are you planning to manage the anticipated demand, especially if you’re currently in a neighbourhood or MAPPA team?
I hope you find this blog helpful and informative. Any corrections or comments, please get in touch or comment below.
Kind Regards, Steve
Want a massive boost to your police promotion ambitions? Want to focus on what works and what matters? My structured PC to Sergeant and my two-ranks-in-one Sergeant to Inspector / Chief Inspectoroffer the best value and focus your prep on what truly matters, suitable for UK promotion processes. Any questions? Get in touch for a free 30 minute discovery call for to your specific force process. Tune in to my extensive podcast for regular powerful leadership CPD and promotion insights.