Some of those freed have committed new crimes just hours after being released, the Daily Mail has reported

Over 26,000 prisoners, some serving lengthy terms, have been freed in the UK as part of a soft-justice program aimed at easing the overcrowding of jails, the Daily Mail has reported, citing government data.

Among those released between September 2024 and March 2025 were 248 convicts sentenced to 14 years or more for committing serious crimes, the paper said in an article on Sunday.

The majority of the criminals freed by the cabinet of Prime Minister Keir Starmer were British citizens, but there were also over 2,600 foreign nationals, the figures show.

An average of 3,461 prisoners have been released each month under the scheme, which allows some inmates to leave after serving 40% of their sentences. Based on this rate, the Daily Mail estimates that the total number of those freed could reach 45,000 by the end of the program’s first year.

According to the paper, the prisoners thanked Starmer after being let out and vowed to be “lifelong Labour voters.” However, some of them committed new crimes just hours after being released, according to the report.

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When asked about the program, a Justice Ministry spokesman said the Labor cabinet “had no choice but to take decisive action to stop prisons overflowing and leave police unable to make arrests” after the previous Conservative government left the UK’s penitentiaries in a dire straits.

“We are building 14,000 prison places and reforming sentencing so jails never run out of space again,” he said.

Tory justice spokesman Robert Jenrick said that the number of the freed criminals was “shocking,” adding that it explained “why Britain feels lawless.” The British public is “sick of soft justice,” Jenrick told the Daily Mail.

The leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, claimed last month that the crime rate in the UK had spiked 50% since the 1990s and that the country is “facing societal collapse” as a result.

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According to Interior Ministry data, knife crime in England and Wales rose 87% over the past decade, with almost 55,000 incidents in 2024 alone. In July, a study suggested that 39% of all mobile phone thefts across Europe now occur in the UK.

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UK releases 26,000 inmates early due to lack of prison space

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