Early prison release scheme prompts vows from freed men

As Labour’s plan to free up jail space by releasing prisoners early begins, BBC News went to prisons across Yorkshire to speak to those getting their freedom back – and those waiting to greet them.

Under a grey, forbidding Yorkshire autumn sky, Jake Crowder looked around the outskirts of HMP Doncaster and said his latest sentence had made him think about the need to change his life.

Jake, from just down the road in Sheffield, told us he was being released three weeks early from a 12-week stretch for shoplifting.

In his own words, he has been a “regular visitor” to the prison, but admitted: “I just need to sort myself out now.”

He said the seeds of his return to jail were sown by problems with his housing situation and being released homeless.

“I would just rather be in jail with a roof and three meals a day,” he added.

Jake said he was a high-risk prisoner due to mental health issues, meaning he should not have to share a cell.

Yet because of overcrowding he had been asked to “pad-up” with a fellow inmate, which he refused to do.

More than 1,700 prisoners were set to be released on Tuesday across the country to help reduce overcrowding in jails.

In Yorkshire, just under 130 prisoners were due for early release according to figures obtained by the BBC.

While there have been mixed feelings about the release in the outside world, what do prisoners think of the scheme?

“They think it’s one of the best things they have done,” Jake told us.

“They are putting people in jail for stupid things.”

Alan Jones was another prisoner released early from the jail on Tuesday, two days before his original date with freedom.

He said it wasn’t “bad bad” inside.

However, overcrowding had meant new prisoners were being taken wherever there was space, including as far as London “and they can’t get visits”.

Alan, who told us he was also serving time for shoplifting, was hopeful he would not find himself back behind bars.

“I’m going to get a job and work like my dad, be a working man,” he said.

Parked outside Leeds Prison in the pouring rain, retired careers advisor Andrew was waiting patiently for his son to walk out.

The 29-year-old was being released just six weeks into a nine-month sentence, his dad told us, for “drug-related” offences.

These crimes included shoplifting, which his dad said had been driven by his son’s addiction to heroin and crack cocaine.

“From a parental point of view, you sort of think ‘Is a safe place for him being in an institution rather than out on the street?’,” said the 70-year-old.

“It’s a dilemma.

“He’s not been in any sort of trouble for the last 10 years, then heroin kicked in a year ago and he’s been in prison three times.

“You try your best to help as a parent, but there comes a time when they have got to want to change.”

Andrew said he wanted to return his son “back to the system of normality”.

Their first port of call was the job centre “to re-engage him with his benefits and hope that he’s going to engage with the services”.

“He only said to me on the phone yesterday that he will have to start shoplifting again if his benefits can’t be sorted out.”

Andrew said his son, who told him he had been taking drugs since the age of 13, “talks about 23 hours a day locked up”.

“The people who should be in there [jail] are the drug pushers and the criminals, it’s a multimillion-pound industry,” he said.

“There’s such a big percentage of people who are in this system who don’t need to be.

“How that’s going to help anybody is beyond my comprehension.

“In some ways it’s the right place because it keeps him from himself because when he’s out on the street he is buying heroin or crack cocaine.”

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