in England and Wales, there is a risk that jails could reach absolute capacity by the August bank holiday weekend.
“Clearly that is a situation that is completely intolerable, because you would get to the point where arresting officers wouldn’t have anywhere to take people,” a senior policing source said. There are also fears that offenders who are subject to bail and licence conditions would feel able to breach restrictions without consequence.
The Prime Minister accused the former Conservative government of “total” and “shocking” failure on the issue, adding: “We’ll have to immediately put in place measures and then talk about the longer term strategy.”. That scheme requires decisions to be made by prison governors on individual cases, and has left probation officers scrambling to put proper public protection plans in place.