Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the recent early release of some prisoners, whether they carried out a risk assessment in relation to the families of those who were released.

This Government inherited a prison system in crisis and was forced to implement SDS40 to avoid complete collapse of the Criminal Justice System, a risk that would greatly affect victims, families, and the country. In designing the measure, and with thorough consideration of the families of those who were being released, we took every possible step to mitigate risk, including an 8-week implementation period, offence exclusions, and a huge amount of collaboration with partners across the Criminal Justice System.

Exclusions include a series of offences (including stalking, coercive or controlling behaviour and non-fatal strangulation) related to domestic abuse, along with sex offences irrespective of sentence length and serious violent offences with a sentence of four years or more. Critically, the implementation period also gave Probation time to prepare properly and engage with key partners ahead of the initial releases, including informing eligible victims within the Victim Contact Scheme or Victim Notification Scheme and engaging with MAPPA and MARAC.

Once released, offenders will be closely monitored by probation and subject to strict licence conditions, which if breached could lead to their immediate recall to prison.