Police chiefs and MI5 have called for the government to give them enough funding amid pressures from the latest plans to release prisoners early.
The heads of theMetropolitan police, MI5 and the National Crime Agency were among those who warned that plans to release prisoners early could be “of net detriment to public safety” in a letter to the justice ministry, the Times reported.
They also argued they would need the “necessary resources” in the upcoming spending review to deal with the plan’s impacts and maintain order.
“We have to ensure that out of court does not mean out of justice, and that out of prison does not mean out of control,” they said in a letter sent before the formal announcement.
Meanwhile, six of the UK’s most senior police chiefs said they needed a larger workforce and called for “serious investment” in a joint article inthe Times.
The Metropolitan police commissioner, Mark Rowley; the NPCC chair, Gavin Stephens; and the chiefs of Merseyside, West Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire police cited the “increasing public demand, growing social volatility … and new serious and organised crime threats emboldened by the online world”.
They said the emergency release of people from the prison system and recommendations in the sentencing review would put more pressure on policing as “we will inevitably be drawn into the control of criminals who would previously have been in prison”.
The policing settlement in the chancellor Rachel Reeves’s spending review, due in June, would directly influence whether forces are able to deliver as many begin to “lose officer numbers and shrink”, they said.
“A lack of investment will bake in the structural inefficiencies for another three years and will lose a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the service.”
The sentencing review released last week recommended measures to tackle prison overcrowding.
Thejustice secretary, Shabana Mahmood,has agreed to allow some criminals including violent and sexual offenders to be released early for good behaviour.
She also agreed to scrap short sentences of under 12 months and have more criminals serve sentences in the community instead.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are backing the police to protect our communities and keep our streets safe with up to £17.6bn this year, an increase of up to £1.2bn.
“This includes £200m to kickstart putting 13,000 additional neighbourhood police officers, PCSOs and special constables that the public will see back on their streets and patrolling communities, as part of our Plan for Change.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This government inherited prisons in crisis, close to collapse. We will never put the public at risk by running out of prison places again.
“We are building new prisons, on track for 14,000 places by 2031 – the largest expansion since the Victorians.
“Our sentencing reforms will force prisoners to earn their way to release or face longer in jail for bad behaviour, while ensuring the most dangerous offenders can be kept off our streets.
“We will also increase probation funding by up to £700m by 2028/29 to tag and monitor tens of thousands more offenders in the community.”