About 700 eligible offenders are scheduled to be released from jails in England and Wales on the morning of 1 October, according to the government's revised early prison release plan. The plan indicates that approximately 2,550 offenders will have been released by the end of the year.
The new plan, which has been signed into law and published online, maintains the original schedule for offender releases, though the start date was delayed by a month. Prime Minister Andy Burnham stated in the Commons on Wednesday that he understood victims' "anguish" and had listened to their concerns, leading to the exclusion of rape, grooming, and child sex offences from the scheme.
A second group of 650 prisoners, serving sentences between 19 months and two years and five months, will be released from 13 October. The Ministry of Justice estimates that the remaining 4,500 releases will be phased in from November 2026 through June 2027.
Prisons in England and Wales are currently at 97% capacity, with Ministry of Justice figures showing around 1,500 available spaces in the male prison estate. The government announced on Tuesday that it is investing £110m from existing budgets to convert unused spaces in prisons into more cells to address overcrowding.