ABOUT 2,000 offenders will get early release next week — as the jail population hits a record high.
A total of 88,521 men and women were in prisons yesterday.
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The total is up by 1,025 people in a month — partly driven by sentencing for riots.
Those being released are 40 per cent into a sentence instead of halfway.
Some will have committed serious crimes.
Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, has said: “It is inevitable things will go wrong.”
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The Government is reported to be considering renting jail cells in Estonia.
Home Office Minister Dame Angela Eagle didn’t deny the claims.
She said: “The last government closed loads of prison places and didn’t replace any of them, so I think that colleagues in the Ministry of Justice will be considering anything that they can to alleviate the problem.
“What we cannot have is people who are convicted of perhaps violent or serious crimes not being able to be in jail.”
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is understood to have met her Estonian counterpart on Thursday.
