(Bloomberg) -- Keir Starmer’s UK government approved emergency measures to prevent prison overcrowding in northern England, as the stretched penal system begins accepting hundreds of people prosecuted over recent riots.
The “decisive action to tackle violent thuggery on our streets” has exacerbated longstanding capacity issues in our prisons, the government said Monday. So-called Operation Early Dawn, which was last used by ex-premier Rishi Sunak’s Conservative administration in May, requires police to hold suspects awaiting a court appearance in police cells until prison space becomes available.
“We’ve had to take these kinds of decisions to ensure that our police have the spaces that they need and we were forced to act in this way,” the prime minister’s spokeswoman, Camilla Marshall, told reporters at a regular briefing. “The fact we’re in this position is unacceptable.”
The move on prison overcrowding underscores his limited space to take decisive policy action after inheriting a government with stressed public services and a historically high tax burden. Starmer cited the prisons crisis as one of his new administration’s most urgent concerns after coming to power last month.
Prison capacity was further exposed by the disorder sparked by the fatal stabbings of three young girls attending a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29. Fueled by far right activists, misinformation about the attacker’s origins spread online, triggering days of anti-immigration rioting with targets including mosques, immigration facilities and the police.
Starmer’s response was to fast-track justice, with some prison sentences handed out within days — an approach he adopted after another wave of riots in 2011 when he was the most senior prosecutor in the country.
The number of people arrested was 1,140 as of Aug. 17, the National Police Chiefs’ Council said, leading to 684 charges. The disorder has mostly subsided.
Yet while some surveys show the public broadly approved of Starmer’s handling of the riots, there are political peril looming for the prime minister as his government grapples with the clogged justice system.
There are only 340 spaces for male prisoners, according to the Prison Officers’ Association. Chairman Mark Fairhurst told the BBC that Monday’s move would give “a bit of breathing space” to “stabilize” the prison system.
Marshall told reporters the contingency measures are designed to support short-term, localized pressure in the country’s prison network and will be in place for “days or weeks.”
The question is what happens afterward. The government has already said it will release prisoners considered low risk after serving 40% of their sentences, a move it said was necessary to stop police cells filling up, preventing court cases from proceeding and dangerous criminals from being arrested.
Former Tory Justice Secretary Alex Chalk also tried to release some prisoners early before the election, but his proposals were rejected by Sunak.
That was in part due to the political risk attached to recidivism, and the same calculation now faces Starmer. His Labour government has promised a new approach to justice, with a focus on prevention as an investment in training to prevent re-offending. James Timpson, whose key-cutting business is known for hiring former prisoners, was appointed as prisons and probation minister.
“We inherited a justice system in crisis and exposed to shocks,” Timpson said in the statement. “As a result, we have been forced into making difficult but necessary decisions to keep it operating.”
Still, it’s far from clear how long the government will be able to make that argument before the public starts to shift the focus of blame.
“We’re being very transparent with the public about what we have to do to fix the inherited crisis in our prison system,” Marshall told reporters.
(Updated with comments from Starmer’s spokeswoman from third paragraph.)
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