\n<\/p>\n
Hearing that their perpetrators may be released months or even years earlier than expected will strike fear\u00a0into the hearts of many victims\u00a0and survivors (Lack of safeguards over prisoners\u2019 early release puts abuse victims at risk, Lammy warned, 8 July). Worse still, unless eligible for the victim contact scheme, which few are, most victims have no way of finding out in advance if they are affected.<\/p>\n
Fixing the prisons crisis is essential, but victims and survivors must not be an afterthought in the government\u2019s plan. A failure to get it right could irreparably damage victims\u2019 sense of safety and trust in the justice system. Once again, victims are bearing the brunt of a broken system. Every victim deserves to be listened to, treated with respect and given the timely support and information they need. Prisoners are going to be released earlier, as they would be released partway through their sentence normally. So it is \u201cearlier\u201d release, not \u201cearly\u201d release.<\/p>\n There are three good reasons to release prisoners early. First, if they serve their full prison term inside, they are released with no supervision or possibility of recall, arguably putting victims at greater risk. Second, the purpose of early release is to provide a period of supervision back in the community after a period when they experience dire prison conditions and lose all power to make choices and decisions. Third,\u00a0prison sentences have been grossly inflated over the past 30 years and early (and earlier) releases bring sentences back to a reasonable term.<\/p>\n Something must be done about prisons and sentences. Earlier releases are expedient, but not an answer. The government must be brave and honest with the public \u2013 prisons are doing more harm than good, and we need radical change.\u00a0I\u2019d be happy to help. Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hearing that their perpetrators may be released months or even years earlier than expected will strike fear\u00a0into the hearts of many victims\u00a0and survivors (Lack of safeguards over prisoners\u2019 early release puts abuse victims at risk, Lammy warned, 8 July). Worse still, unless eligible for the victim contact scheme, which few are, most victims have no<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[442,265,7903,2413,2414,9831,1350],"class_list":{"0":"post-51097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-early","9":"tag-impact","10":"tag-prisoners","11":"tag-prisons","12":"tag-probation","13":"tag-releasing","14":"tag-wider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Katie Kempen<\/strong>
Chief executive, Victim Support<\/em><\/p>\n
Frances Crook<\/strong>
Former CEO, Howard League for\u00a0Penal Reform<\/em><\/p>\n