Top police officers warned at the end of last year how the Government’s controversial early release plans would delight offenders and trigger a crimewave.
Today, we have further evidence of just how disastrous Labour’s policy is likely to be.
Research from the Conservatives – based on official data – now predicts inmates released early from jail after serving as little as one third of their sentences will go on to commit a staggering 89,000 new crimes by 2029.
The politician responsible for this mess is Shabana Mahmood, one of a handful of senior ministers to remain in their posts after Andy Burnham’s ‘Black T-shirt Coup’.
But this is not Mahmood’s only major blunder. As I shall explain, her reverse ‘Midas touch’ sees almost everything she gets her hands on implode.
Currently, the early release programme – dubbed a namby-pamby ‘get out of jail free card’ by its critics – is perhaps the most urgent issue. And it was entirely drawn up by Ms Mahmood in her previous role as Justice Secretary.
Last September, just a couple of days before she was moved to the Home Office by then-PM Sir Keir Starmer, she unveiled the early release scheme in a Parliamentary Bill – leaving her successor David Lammy with the dirty work of getting it on to the Statute Book.
The spineless scheme was dressed up as essential reform to avoid a collapse in the prison system. Now that the first releases are just three weeks away, it has exploded into a major crisis for a Labour Party seen by some – in an inversion of Tony Blair’s famous mantra – as ‘soft on crime, soft on the causes of crime’.
Shabana Mahmood described a £662million beach patrols deal with the French government, signed in April, as a ‘landmark agreement’ with the country
Lissie Harper, the widow of Andrew Harper, has movingly described the heartbreak of learning that two of her husband’s smirking killers are due to be freed early
And one critic in particular has emerged as a powerful opponent.
The widow of Andrew Harper, the police officer hideously killed while responding to a report of a stolen quad bike in Berkshire seven years ago, has relentlessly castigated Labour over its release policy.
Lissie Harper has movingly described the heartbreak of learning that two of her husband’s smirking killers are due to be freed early.
Ms Mahmood has created a nightmare policy for Mr Burnham that Labour’s opponents will exploit ruthlessly, as ever-more egregious criminals are let out in monthly waves until next summer. Those on shorter sentences will be eligible first, working upwards to those serving 12 years or more. In other words, the criminals being set loose will become progressively more dangerous as times goes on. Victims and the wider public will be increasingly horrified.
But if Ms Mahmood’s masterplan at the Ministry of Justice wasn’t bad enough, her efforts since being appointed as Home Secretary are even worse – not least her abject failure to tackle the menace of small boats.
Ms Mahmood described a £662million beach patrols deal with the French government, signed in April, as a ‘landmark agreement’ that would ‘really arm us to go after the people-smugglers’. But last month Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp visited the French coastline and saw gendarmes standing idly by as migrants boarded dinghies to England. Yesterday similar scenes were replayed on other French beaches.
Despite these glaring shortcomings, captured on film, the Home Office insisted last week that its plan was working. One official source even claimed that ‘our work is beginning to bear fruit’ as they noted a 43 per cent drop in Channel arrivals so far this year compared with last.
Yet it is far from clear whether by the end of the year the total will be significantly smaller than 2025’s.
Meanwhile, traffickers are plotting ever more devious ways to get around any measures Britain and France put in place, including the use of deathtrap ‘mega dinghies’ with more than 170 migrants aboard.
And Ms Mahmood has blocked all progress reports on her eye-catching policy, announced in March, to hand failed asylum-seeker families up to £40,000 to go home voluntarily.
Since then her department has been asked multiple times by the Daily Mail how many families have been offered the cash, how many have accepted and how much has it cost the British taxpayer.
All these questions have been stonewalled, suggesting that something has gone awfully wrong with the policy.
With all these problems mounting up, Mr Burnham’s decision to retain Ms Mahmood at the Home Office may not be the vote of confidence it at first appears.
If by the start of next year, say, she has failed to get a grip on small boats, it will be far easier for the PM to sack a more centrist figure from the Starmer era than if he had installed one of his own favourites.
With so many calamities to her name already, there is a strong chance this woeful Home Secretary will be out of the door when the first Burnham reshuffle arrives.
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