Burnham pauses early prison release scheme

Burnham pauses early prison release schemeImage source, Getty ImagesByHenry Moore and James GregoryPublished23 July 2026, 15:04 BSTUpdated 23 minutes agoAndy Burnham has announced he is pausing a scheme which would have seen thousands of prisoners in England and Wales eligible to be released early.It came after criticism of the scheme from survivors and victims' families, including the widow of PC Andrew Harper who described the possibility of his killers' early release as "deplorable".The Sentencing Act, which was due to come into effect in September, would have seen some offenders let out at varying stages in a bid to ease prison overcrowding.The new Justice Secretary Alex Norris said the pause aimed to "give victims and survivors certainty" and the government wanted to make sure it got "the implementation of this policy right".He added a review would also look at the information given to survivors and victims' families as part of the early release process.Burnham earlier said: "No prisoners will be let out under this policy until we have conducted an urgent review and done everything we can to minimise risk to the public."He added: "Where changes are needed, we will not hesitate to make them."Under the act, some offenders would have been let out after serving a third of their sentence, rather than half. The rest of their sentence would be spent in the community, where they would be monitored and could be returned to prison if they offended again. More serious offenders would have been released after serving half of their sentence, rather than two-thirds.The policy was brought in to ease overcrowding in the prison system but has been criticised by opposition parties, as well as victims and their families.The decision to pause the scheme came after criticism from the family of PC Andrew Harper, who was killed in 2019 when he was dragged by a car down a country road by three teenagers.Two of the killer...