Killers and rapists to be freed early starting in September

[IwantToRetire]

David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, is to implement legal changes that will see criminals accused of serious offences released early for the first time as part of Government efforts to prevent jails from running out of space.

They include prisoners convicted of manslaughter, rape, GBH and sex offences who will be eligible for release halfway through their sentences rather than serving the current tariff of two-thirds of their sentence.

For a criminal jailed for a total of 15 years for manslaughter or rape, it will mean they will be freed after 7.5 years rather than 10, provided they are assessed to have behaved well and have not committed any serious rule breaches while in prison.

Criminals convicted of burglary, theft, assault and repeated shoplifting will be freed as little as a third of the way through their sentences, rather than the current 40 per cent, provided they have not committed any serious rule breaches.

It is understood that the first 700 offenders will be freed in September, followed by similar numbers for each of the next nine months in a staggered release plan to get the new system up and running.

Article continues at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/25/killers-rapists-freed-early-first-time-prison-overcrowding/

And at https://archive.is/yPCul

This was announced 6 days ago and somehow never made the news. Only because C4 news today had a segment on it. Interviews with women who have received letters about their rapist being released.

Comment here https://insidetime.org/newsround/earlier-releases-under-sentencing-act-to-start-in-september/

Her tweet was picked up by the algorithm and seen 310,000 times in the period between her writing it and then deleting it. She also didn't seem that remorseful in later WhatsApp messages. I have some sympathy in that (unlike addressing a crowd of people) when writing on twitter you can't know how large a crowd you are talking to. It could be 1 person. It could be 1000s. However, she seemed to enjoy the fact she had had an impact and be looking to make an impact.

I am listening to what she said. What she said was "Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f hotels full of the bastards for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.” and then people did try to set fire to the hotels. The pattern of behaviour went:
Murder if schoolchildren>false rumours that the murderer was an asylum seeker>Connelly writes a tweet calling for hotels to be burnt that is seen by hundreds of thousands of people>some of those people they tried to burn down a hotel for real. A hotel with humans inside.

I think there is an a problem with how speech is policed in this country. But Lucy Connelly is about the worst poster child for it because she was so obviously caught bang to rights. The only reason she has become a poster child for freedom of speech is because she fits a profile more people sympathise with. But it's damaging to people who actually care about over policing since anyone feeling initially that she was badly treated, and then hearing the details and changing their mind,.is likely to assume real miscarriages of justice are similarly mischaracterised. Her story genuinely reads like a modern version of Mills "riot oitside a corn merchants house" example of the limits to free speech.

Calling for violence against people that is then committed by others is not a non violent crime. If she is advocating for women who are in prison and prison conditions then good for her. That doesn't mean she herself was wrongfully sentenced.

I think the issue is that as usual, and it doesn't matter which Party it is, what has happened is chaotic, and it is fairly obvious that claims of better monitoring etc., wont happen.

This isn't about whether there needs to be reform of which crimes get which type of punishment.

This is about as much as anything, the women who were led to believe after a drawn out legal process, that the man or men who attacked her would be locked away for an agreed period of time, and then only be released if fit to be released.

Now, as a result of little more than a bureaucratic exercise, this fragile sense of safety has been taken away from these women who have suffered male violence.

Many with little or no notice.

And of course, on another level, it effectively means all sentences that have already been given, are now all reduced sentences.

It is about the political class in the UK not being able to keep their promises.

And of course women bearing the impact of this.

Agree.

People say worse, much more specific threats ALL THE TIME and receive no prosecution whatsoever. TRAs are constantly threatening to beat women up. All the death to terfs, the only good terf is a dead terf etc. She cannot be herself held accountable for an algorithm, that's on the social media site. She was not a person of influence at all.

I do think what she did was wrong, and she deserved a fine or community service or something. However, plenty of people directly threaten murder and nothing happens. Women are stalked relentlessly, nothing happens, their stalkers aren't put in prison despite much more specific horrific threats. It usually takes a woman being murdered before anything happens. I don't think depriving her child of her mother for a tweet is a proportional response, I think it's clear it was a political prosecution.

There were also mitigating circumstances, not taken into account in her case but apparently much less compelling mitigating circumstances ARE taken into account when it's a rapist like they're young boys and they don't want to ruin their lives; namely she herself had lost a child so the Southport murders had a more significant upsetting impact, she had no prior convictions, she had many people of all races who were character witnesses for her putting her in prison would have a terrible effect on her child.

She did a stupid thing. She deleted it. I'm unsure whether the reason the algorithm picked it up was before or after she was targeted as someone who should be banged up for saying something bad one time.

I suspect her solicitor thought she WOULD get off with a fine because FAR WORSE crimes which really harm people often end up in a fine or less. She was badly advised because they wanted a scapegoat.

I've not heard anyone say she shouldn't have received some sanction for her tweet, but her prison sentence (any prison sentence really given there is no proof her tweet did incite anyone to do anything) was insane. Especially when we have known child rapists and torturers wandering the streets.

I think some TRAs have also gone past "deeply unpleasant" to inciting violence to be fair. That doesn't mean I want insults to be policed. But where men with a history of violence are openly calling for violence against women because they disagree with them it should be taken more seriously than it has been. Also direct death threats to public figures like JKR should be treated like death threats/harassment. The double standards re TRAs are very obvious.

I don't want to derail the discussion to much about Connelly. The main topic was sexually violent men and I don't think she is equivalent to them. However, a poster asked why she was still in prison when rapists were walking free and my point is she isn't in prison so the lack of space has very little to do with her. As a point of principle I don't think it was wrong that she went to prison because when you look at what she actually said it was justified. Linehans arrest was much less justified but for a mixture of reasons I think didn't generate the same outrage. I think "crying wolf" on cases where people are inciting violence doesn't help with working out when speech should be free and when it shouldn't.

These 2 reports show the reality of despite claims of financial necessity, the solution proposed by the Government just isn't going to work.

And it will be women who will pay the price for this "economic" solution to years of underfunding of the prison service.

https://www.channel4.com/news/thousands-of-offenders-not-wearing-electronic-tags-report-says

C4 spoke to the Victims Commissioner for London, Andrea Simon.

She was previously the director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition and was on the Sentencing Review panel that led to plans to release prisoners early.

https://www.channel4.com/news/victims-commissioner-for-london-not-surprised-over-electronic-tag-failings