Wedaeli Chibelushi
Live page reporter

Image source, Unlock

The early release scheme faces criticism but some believe it is a necessary intervention.

Unlock, a charity helping former prisoners rebuild their lives, argues that “people should be given a second chance”.

“The key to success will be the prioritisation of rehabilitation and reintegration activities in prison and on probation,” Unlock chief executive Paula Harriott tells the BBC.

Elsewhere, the Prison Advice & Care Trust (PACT) charity says it “acknowledges the necessity of the scheme” which “buys time” for prisons.

But PACT CEO Andy Keen-Downs says the scheme isn’t a solution.

“What we need now is a long-term plan that tackles soaring recall rates and helps people build better lives on release,” he says.

Alex Moss
Reporting from HMP Leeds

Myself and other media are gathered outside HMP Leeds, known locally as simply Armley.

The category B prison, just outside the city centre, receives nearly 600 new arrivals a month and holds more than 1,000 adult men.

A report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, published in May, said the prison service had failed to make any meaningful progress in addressing the "chronic overcrowding" at the jail.

The report added: "The reduction of 20 spaces in the operational capacity was far too small to have a positive impact on a population of over 1,000."

There’s been a steady stream of prison officers arriving for their shifts so far this morning but there is no sign yet of any inmates being released.

There’s a small cluster of reporters and photographers across from the jail's main entrance awaiting any prisoners who will be freed into the autumnal sunshine here.

In the next few minutes, we're expecting the first phase of the early release scheme to begin. Prisoners are set to be released in phases determined by their sentences - this timeline is based on Ministry of Justice estimates:

• From today: 700 offenders serving up to 19 months
• From 13 October: 650 prisoners who have been serving sentences of between 19 months and two years and five months
• From 10 November: 650 offenders serving up to three years and two months
• From 8 December: 550 offenders serving up to four years and three months
• From 12 January: 600 offenders serving up to five years and nine months
• From 9 February: 500 offenders serving up to seven years and six months
• From 9 March: 200 offenders serving up to nine years
• From 13 April: 200 offenders serving up to 10 years
• From 11 May: 250 offenders serving up to 12 years
• From 9 June: 250 offenders serving more than 12 years

Sima Kotecha
Senior UK correspondent

Probation staff will be responsible for monitoring the early releases in the community. They make sure they follow the terms of their release such as sticking to curfews and not taking drugs.

This morning I received a message from a probation officer: “I have no idea how we’ll cope with this influx of offenders - it’s just too much."

The Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, said in a report published this week that thousands who should be electronically tagged haven’t been. GPS tags monitor the movements of offenders and can detect whether someone has entered an area they’re restricted from.

The government says its new restriction zones will tightly control the movements of serious offenders - and that its rolling out the biggest ever expansion of electronic tagging to monitor offenders in the community

Gemma Dawson
Senior reporter and presenter, BBC Look North

The sun is coming up outside Lincoln Prison and for the last half an hour a steady stream of prison staff have been arriving here for their shifts.

Otherwise, it’s been very quiet here so far with the prison gates remaining closed.

Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent

When an offender is due to be released on licence, a senior prison official explains the conditions they will be under and that they must work with their probation officer.

In an ideal world, they should not be leaving jail without somewhere to initially stay - but often offenders leave jail with nowhere to go, particularly if they are estranged from family.

The licence conditions are handed to the prisoner and a record is sent to the police. The all-important first meeting with a probation officer follows.

The new rules requiring almost all those leaving jail on a continuing sentence to be tagged. New tools mean those tags can be monitored in real-time - a bit like those apps we all use to find where we left our phones.

But just this week the chief inspector of probation reported that almost half of tags used to track offenders' movements are not fitted on time. There is a big, big challenge for government to get this right.

Linsey Smith
Correspondent, BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

There’s plenty of activity but so far it’s only from prison guards in uniform arriving for a shift changeover.

The BBC understands that 700 prisoners are due to be released across the country today. They have not specified which location inmates will leave from.

The scheme prompted public campaigning against early release. But in a statement, the government said that the offenders leaving today will be subject to the toughest supervision in British history, with new powers to restrict their movements coming.

Emma Glasbey
Yorkshire home and social affairs correspondent

Helen Duncanson from North Yorkshire has been suffering from "night terrors and panic" after being told her abuser could be eligible for early release.

Ex-partner Michael Boyes, 40, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in January after pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and controlling and coercive behaviour.

But Helen has been informed he could be freed in March 2027 after serving only 14 months.

She described feeling "panic" when she was told. "I genuinely didn't sleep a wink that night because I was having heart palpitations and I couldn't breathe," she said.

"How dare they release these violent individuals? How do you, as a government, have the right to overrule a judge?

"That's my question and no one has been able to answer that."

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said in a statement: "Release from prison does not mean freedom, and we have designed the toughest licence conditions yet with victim safety at the centre."

Read more on Helen's story here.

The charity Victim Support is launching a new dedicated helpline for victims and survivors who are worried about an offender being released from prison earlier than expected.

Chief Executive Katie Kempen tells BBC Breakfast too many victims struggle to get information and have to deal with poor communication from authorities.

Kempen says some victims have received letters informing them that perpetrators are being released but others haven't been told and are finding the situation "traumatising." She says her organisation is trying to help with "unmet needs".

Kempen says the aim is to give victims emotional and practical support and in the case of domestic violence, work closely with the Women's Aid charity.

Find links to Victim Support and Women's Aid at BBC Action Line

By Sima Kotecha, Senior UK correspondent, with Jade Thompson and Claire Ellison

Claire Milne's ex-husband, Robert Dales, was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of coercive control and possessing offensive weapons in March this year.

But she was recently informed by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) that Dales, 36, would be released early.

"I am scared that he will come after me. I don't want to die," she says. "I am not a silly woman - I know that I've been in a very high-risk domestic abuse relationship and I know what he's capable of because I lived it."

She said she was "incredibly angry" with the government, who were "not listening to victims".

Sima Kotecha
Senior UK correspondent

According to sources, today’s early releases are expected to begin at around 08:30 BST.

They will include people with convictions for fraud, domestic abuse, and coercive control. They've been serving sentences of just under 19 months, and are being released after completing a third of their jail term, rather than 40%.

This is about creating more room in overcrowded prisons - with recent figures showing there are just over 1,100 vacant beds in the adult male estates.

The government says new restriction zones will tightly control the movements of sexual and violent offenders - and that its rolling out the biggest ever expansion of electronic tagging to monitor offenders in the community... but several victims have told the BBC they’re not convinced they’ll be properly protected from people who harmed them.

Image source, Thames Valley Police/PA Wire

PC Andrew Harper, 28, from Wallingford, Oxfordshire, died in 2019 when he was dragged behind the getaway car of three teenagers who had fled the scene of a quad bike theft in Berkshire.

Two of the teens - Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, were sentenced to 13 years for manslaughter in July 2020.

Under an earlier version of the government's scheme, the pair would have been eligible for early release after serving half their sentences.

But over the summer the government came under pressure after PC Harper's family launched a high profile campaign against their early release. His mother, Debbie Adlam, described the proposed early release of his killers as "a slap in the face and an insult".

There were calls from 50 UK police chiefs for emergency legislation to prevent their release.

In August, Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced changes to the early release scheme so that Bowers and Cole would remain behind bars. Anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, would be excluded from the scheme, he said.

Wedaeli Chibelushi
Live page reporter

Some domestic abuse survivors are taking steps such as moving country, moving house and changing their children’s schools because their perpetrators are being released from prison early, a government tsar says.

Nicole Jacobs, the first domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, tells me she has heard from survivors who are "uprooting their lives because they simply do not trust that sufficient safeguards are in place to manage their abuser safely in the community".

Likewise, a survey from domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid found some survivors had relocated or gone into a refuge as they were scared for the safety of their children.

Today, survivors across the country will be "looking over their shoulder and living in fear because the government and our criminal justice system has failed to protect them", Jacobs says.

Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent

The early release plan is not something that was dreamt up overnight by the government - this has been two years in the planning and was publicly debated in Parliament.

When Labour came to office in 2024, it launched the emergency scheme to release some offenders at the 40% mark of their sentence to prevent jails running out of cells that summer.

It said it would come back with a full scheme to fundamentally change sentencing to end the pressures and to put more cash into rehabilitation.

The Sentencing Act 2026 was the final plan and basically means many fixed-term offenders will spend two-thirds of their sentence being intensively supervised in the community, rather than half.

The scheme excludes life sentence prisoners and others who judges concluded were particularly dangerous.

When it was being debated in Parliament, the Conservatives argued that it should exclude rapists among others.

The Burnham government decided to do so - and sexual offenders are now excluded, along with those convicted of manslaughter.

• Offenders serving standard fixed sentences, who were due to be released after 50% of their term, will leave jail after 33%
• More serious offenders offenders on fixed terms, who would have been released at 66% of their sentence, will be released after 50%
• The changes will not now apply to people guilty of rape, serious child sex and other grooming offences, as well as manslaughter following outcry over the potential release of two people convicted over the death of PC Andrew Harper
• The most serious offenders - including life prisoners and those who are subjected to extended monitoring - were already not eligible under the scheme

Image source, Getty Images

A record expansion of electronic monitoring and new restriction zones are being promised by the government as hundreds of prisoners leave jail today under the controversial early release scheme.

Today some 700 prisoners in England and Wales will be released on strict conditions in a bid to ease overcrowding. Hundreds more will be released each month into the middle of next year in a phased approach, with some short-term inmates to be freed after serving 33% of their sentences.

Manslaughter, rape, and sexual and grooming offences are excluded from the scheme.

The government says there will be a presumption offenders will wear ankle monitors when they leave prison, and the movements of the highest-risk offenders will be restricted to zones a few miles wide, while bans from pubs and public events are also on the table.

But the early release plan has faced significant criticism, including from victims' families, senior police and probation officials.

Follow our live coverage as we bring you updates, reaction and analyses.