Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley said the Government was being forced to free prisoners earlier to avoid a situation that would be “really dangerous for the public”.He stressed that ministers were having to adopt the “least worst option” of earlier releases amid warnings that if they did not jails would be full, leading to paralysis in the courts and police officers unable to arrest suspected offenders as there would be no place to detain them.New Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood was on Friday unveiling emergency action to stop the criminal justice system imploding, with some inmates expected to be freed after serving 40 per cent of their sentence, rather than half.Sir Mark told ITV’S Good Morning Britain: “The Government have got a situation where there is no easy solution.“Prisons are very close to full and filling up.“The worst possible thing would be for the system to block.”He explained further: “If the system blocks in prisons, if they get completely full that kicks back into the courts and to what we do and that’s really dangerous for the public.
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NewsTranscript
00:00What do you make of Sakir Starman and the government's plans
00:03to release prisoners early?
00:06Do you feel it's going to make your job harder?
00:10So the government have got a situation
00:13where there's no easy solution.
00:17The worst possible thing, as prisons
00:19are very, very close to full and filling up day in and day out,
00:22the worst possible thing would be for the system to block.
00:25Because if the system blocks in prisons,
00:26if they get completely full, that kicks back into the courts
00:29and to what we do, and that's really dangerous to the public.
00:32So the government are forced into making a rapid decision
00:36to avoid that risk.
00:37So it's going to be the least worst option
00:40they're going to have to find.
00:41So I understand what they're trying to do.
00:43However not ideal it is.