Ex-prisoner warns of 'merry-go-round' of reoffending under early release scheme
He worries that many have not been rehabilitated
A man who was released from prison early in 2025 has said he endorses the controversial early release scheme “for some people”, but worries about ex-prisoners re-offending.
Today, (October 13), around 650 prisoners who were sentenced to up to two and a half years in prison, will be released under PM Andy Burnham’s early release scheme.
Rob Prior was sentenced to five years and six months in jail for a non-violent crime in 2023, but was released in August 202 after being eligible for early release. He now runs Sidekick Initiative, and organisation to provide support for vulnerable people, including ex-prisoners. He also often gives talks in prisons around the UK.
He said: “There are two types of prisoners. You've got those that want to just sit in their cell and just take drugs all day and you’ve got people who just want to serve their time and just want to get home, who will use that time to better themselves.
“If someone has been rehabilitated, by all accounts, I think everyone should be entitled to early release. But I do think, if you've harmed women and children, I don't think you should be allowed to be released early, because with most of these sex offenders, there are light sentences anyway. There's people that have been sentenced for riots recently or protests that have got longer sentences, someone that's been done for like rape.
“Imagine one of your loved ones went through something horrible, and the person who hurt them got a light sentence, to have them released even earlier seems like there's no justice.”
Under the early release scheme, prisoners serving various lengths of time in prison will be released after serving only a third of their sentence. Some categories of serious crime have been excluded from the scheme, including sexual offences and manslaughter.
However, those convicted of domestic abuse related offences, including common assault, controlling or coercive behavior, non-fatal strangulation, stalking and harassment, will be eligible for the scheme.
The second stage of the scheme begins today, a next step in the process of releasing batches around 5000 offenders serving increasingly longer sentences.
Mr Prior gained multiple qualifications while serving his sentence, and feels “completely rehabilitated and changed” after his release.
“I looked at my sentence as the gift of time,” he said. “I used it to get qualifications, work, teach and mentor other prisoners.
“Other lads I knew were getting jobs inside, working towards a red band and earning trust and responsibility. Some progressed to Category D and work in the community. Those things can give somebody something to aim for and help prepare them for life outside.”
Mr Prior thinks that early release should be judged on how well someone has been rehabilitated in prison, but worries that the new scheme is not rigorous enough in its evaluation of risk.
“They just seem to be letting everyone out,” he said. “If you've got someone that is constantly reoffending and it's like a merry-go-round for them, in and out of jail, the chances of them reoffending are going to be high.
“If they're coming out and there's no support thing with probation and probation are just you're going into a room, which is what I felt like at first, they will just go back.
“If somebody spends their sentence doing nothing and nothing happens to help them change, what are they coming home with? Moving their release date forward doesn’t address the problems that keep taking them back to prison.
“But also some lads have been in and out so many times that prison has become their life. They know the routine inside, but they struggle outside. That cycle needs looking at properly. If somebody comes out and goes straight back, you have to ask what happened before release and afterwards, rather than automatically saying it was because they were released early.
“If they're coming out and there's no support with probation, which is what I felt like at first, that won’t help. They changed my probation officer and he literally books an hour aside for me because he loves sitting and talking to me, he’s amazing. So when you've got someone like that that works for the government that is clapping you, you go in there and you look forward to it and you don't want to let them down, but some of these lads are coming out and have no support around them.”
Professor Francis Pakes, professor of criminology at the University of Portsmouth, has called the early release scheme an “ugly decision that no prime minister wants to make”.
He said: “ Andy Burnham would much rather that we all talk about other things than about prison overcrowding, prison crisis, and this hasty early release scheme.
“Andy Burnham has inherited this from Kier Starmer, he made some sensible changes to it. I would say, to try and ensure that, in a way, the worst of the worst offenders don't benefit from this scheme. But of course, you know, if you let out 700 offenders early in the first phase of this scheme, then it is inevitable that it causes a degree of disquiet.
“It'll help alleviate any pressure on the justice system a little bit, but the crisis that the prison system is in is pretty serious and letting out something like 700 people helps, but it is less than one percent of the whole of the prison population. So while it may help, it also won't be, you know, this enormous, it won't make an enormous difference in the short term.
“Let's hope that this isn't just a panic measure that needs to happen, after which we, you know, all forget about it again and then we're in the same position again in a year or two.”
Professor Pakes, like Mr Prior, highlighted the importance of the probation service in rehabilitation and release of prisoners.
“If we have more offenders in the community, then probation needs to have the power, the skills, the resourcing, to look after these offenders properly and keep us all safe,” he said.
“I'd like to think that over time things are improving, but probation has been better. They've had reorganisation after reorganisation and they have suffered cuts as well.
“We really need a committed, skilled workforce, you know, with a lot of heart as well. We're asking a lot of people in the professions to keep us all safe and particularly in light of slightly panicky decision making at a political level.”