Figures from the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) show that there were 85,867 prisoners behind bars in England and Wales on Monday.
That’s 1,598 fewer than the 87,465 recorded earlier last week – a day before a second wave of inmates released prisons early to ease overcrowding – marking a 1.8 percent drop in the population over the seven-day period.
The government said around 1,100 prisoners had been released from prisons in the two countries on October 22, suggesting that 498 more had been released on standard release terms in the same period.
The drop means English and Welsh men’s and women’s prisons have a capacity of 89,008, which means there is now room for 3,141 offenders.
The latest figure is now the lowest weekly number since June 30 last year, when the population was 85,851.
But it’s also just 3% below the prison population, which hit a new record high of 88,521 on Sept. 6, a PA news agency analysis showed.
The extra 1,350 cell spaces are to be above the overall capacity of prison estates in England and Wales as a contingency measure, so prisons can cope with sudden arrivals of prisoners or changes in the prison population, according to the MoD.
Justice Minister Shabana Mahmoud announced this summer that the proportion of sentences some prisoners in England and Wales will have to serve behind bars will be temporarily reduced from 50% to 40%.
The policy went into effect on September 10, with approximately 1,700 inmates released on the first day, and has since applied to all eligible inmates.
Last week’s second mass exodus marked the next phase of the plan’s implementation, as it was expanded to include those serving sentences of five years or more.
Prisons are still expected to reach critical capacity by July.
The Prime Minister said the incoming Labor government had no choice but to act because of Conservative negligence and defended the move after pictures showed inmates celebrating their early release, with one saying “Big Keir Starmer”.
Speaking in Birmingham on Monday, he asked where the “Tory apology” was for “the state of our prisons”, adding: “Watching prison populations grow, they are too weak to reform sentencing or build new places. , were too afraid to conduct proper spending audits – because of the damage they knew they would reveal, which we now have.
“That’s why they avoided this exercise and called early elections instead. They knew our public services were broken.”
The government plans to review the changes in 18 months’ time and is also considering a number of long-term measures to ease pressure on cell space.