Prison governors backed the assessment. Tom Wheatley, the president of the Prison Governors’ Association (PGA), said: “We are back on the ramp up to where we were. We reckon it [the early release scheme] has bought us less than a year. We are on a steady upward trend getting us back to where we were.”
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***The Telegraph reports:***
Prisons will run out of space again in as little as nine months, despite thousands of criminals being freed under [Sir Keir Starmer’s early release scheme](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/10/early-release-prisoners-back-in-jail-within-days-watchdog/), ministers have been warned.
Hopes that emptying up to 5,500 prison places could buy 18 months before jails filled up again have been dashed after hundreds of people [were charged over the rioting](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/06/prison-population-record-high-influx-rioters/) that broke out this summer.
A senior justice source said: “The [early release scheme](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/10/hotels-could-be-usedhouse-released-prisoners-mahmood/) is only going to buy us nine months. There is a recognition that the period has been shortened by what has happened around the disorder.”
The first 1,750 prisoners were let out of jails on Tuesday, [40 per cent of the way through their sentences](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/07/prisoners-serve-40-per-cent-sentence-to-beat-overcrowding/) rather than halfway. New [prisons and cell blocks](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/05/extra-500-prison-cells-rioters-inmates-move-cobra-mahmood/) are also expected to add some 3,500 places to the current jail capacity of just under 89,000 by the end of next year.
Nearly 1,300 people [have been arrested](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/09/jailed-rioter-yells-i-am-english-police-arrest/) over the rioting in August, of whom 800 have been charged and more than 570 already jailed or brought before the courts.
Prison governors backed the assessment. Tom Wheatley, the president of the Prison Governors’ Association (PGA), said: “We are back on the ramp up to where we were. We reckon it [the early release scheme] has bought us less than a year. We are on a steady upward trend getting us back to where we were.”
**Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/11/prisons-run-out-of-space-again-nine-months-early-releases/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/11/prisons-run-out-of-space-again-nine-months-early-releases/)
Just arrest smaller prisoners
Build more, creates jobs