Key Facts

• The new phase covers people serving sentences of up to three years and two months, who will be released after serving no more than one-third of their sentence in prison.
• The scheme will gradually include people serving longer sentences, with releases of prisoners serving more than 12 years scheduled to begin next June.
• Some people convicted of affray, burglary, fraud, wounding, grievous bodily harm with intent, and lower-level firearms offences may qualify.
• More than 70 offence types are excluded, including manslaughter, rape, sexual and grooming offences; people serving life terms are also excluded.
• Prison population figures showed 86,982 people in jail on Monday, with 2,076 spaces available—about 500 more than before the scheme began.
• Released prisoners are generally expected to wear electronic tags and follow licence conditions, with probation officers monitoring them in the community.
• The Ministry of Justice has offered probation officers a 5% pay rise and says it will invest £700 million in probation, including recruiting 1,300 additional officers and introducing AI tools.
• The government has not published figures on how many prisoners released early have been recalled for breaking their licence conditions.