{"id":183102,"date":"2026-08-09T06:25:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T06:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/183102\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T06:25:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T06:25:25","slug":"burnhams-prison-dilemma-is-not-going-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/183102\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnham\u2019s prison dilemma is not going away"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is excellent news that Andy Burnham now appears determined to block the early release of two of Pc Andrew Harper’s killers<\/a>. Having suggested earlier this week that there was nothing he could do, the Prime Minister is now weighing up two options that would enable him to act.<\/p>\n

The first would be to block all those convicted of manslaughter from being released early. This is the ideal solution. But for decades successive governments have failed to build the prison places the country needs. If the prisons are indeed soon to hit their maximum capacity<\/a>, as the Government claims \u2013 and it is incapable of securing more places at short notice \u2013 this option would imply that other prisoners would soon have to be released in their stead.<\/p>\n

The second option before Mr Burnham would be to exempt killers of emergency service staff from the Government’s prisoner early release scheme, rather than all those convicted of manslaughter. This would obviously free up many more prison places, as many more offenders would remain subject to early release. Such a carve-out, however, puts the Government at risk of a legal challenge for unequal treatment, according to civil servants.<\/p>\n

Mr Burnham is on holiday and hasn’t made up his mind yet. But if he were to go for the narrower option he should relish the fight, rather than shrink from it.<\/p>\n

If he wins, he will have prevented an outright injustice<\/a>. If he loses, he will have helped reveal the absurdity of a legal system which will have been used to protect the rights of killers over those of victims.<\/p>\n

Prime ministers are defined by the battles they pick. So far, Mr Burnham has largely avoided any big conflicts. He would do well to make this stand his first. The public is understandably extremely angry at the thought that people who go to prison very rarely serve their full term. They cannot stand the endless injustices inherent in early release schemes, which are either designed to make up for the failures of the state, or are indicative of a Leftish, soft-on-crime bias in the justice system.<\/p>\n

The fundamental point is that Mr Burnham’s immediate options are merely sticking plasters. Two radical solutions must be adopted. Twelve per cent of our prison population is made up of foreign nationals<\/a>. They must all be expelled.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, Mr Burnham must accelerate the construction of jails, breaking through the delays caused by the sclerotic planning system where necessary.<\/p>\n

In the 1960s, 20 prisons were opened. In the 2020s, despite a massively increased population, only three have been opened so far. During Covid, the state was able to build so-called emergency Nightingale hospitals at short notice. An equivalent for prisons is urgently needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is excellent news that Andy Burnham now appears determined to block the early release of two of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73961],"tags":[28914,43238,13312,19446],"class_list":["post-183102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-andy-burnham","tag-andy-burnham","tag-mr-burnham","tag-prison","tag-the-prime-minister"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117064127386804622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}