Deputy Prime Minister announces new measures to bear down on releases in error and keep public safe
Source: gov.uk (2025-11-11)

Immediate action to clamp down on mistaken releases from prisons and restore public confidence in the criminal justice system has been announced by the Deputy Prime Minister today (Tuesday 11 November).

- Deputy Prime Minister unveils action to crack down on mistaken prison releases
- Courts hotline established to fast-track prison queries and reduce mistakes
- Up to £10 million over six months to introduce technology and AI solutions that help frontline staff avoid errors and ensure accuracy
Updating the House of Commons, David Lammy set out the decisive steps being taken to keep the public safe, including harnessing new technology to bear down on mistakes.

These new measures will help reverse the rising trend in release errors, which began under the last government, and keep offenders who should be in prison locked up.

A £10 million investment will see the roll out of new AI-powered tools to frontline staff so they can accurately calculate sentences and vital upgrades to the archaic paper-based systems accelerated. Currently, already under pressure prison staff are having to wade through more than 500 pages of guidance, making mistakes more likely.

The multi-million-pound pledge will be invested over the next six months and build on new digital crack-teams deployed to prisons last week to look at how cutting-edge technology can be used to bring down errors.

Further action includes:
- The Deputy Prime Minister will chair a new monthly Justice Performance Board to track how prisons and courts are performing
- Expanding Dame Lynne Owen’s independent review including looking at other relevant cases as deemed necessary by Dame Lynne and understand systematic issues
- A fast-track courts hotline so prison staff can quickly check for outstanding warrants before offenders are released
- Simplifying prisoner release policy to standardise how cases are treated and consider whether amendments are required to operational policy.
The Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said:

The first duty of any Government is to keep the public safe. The rise in releases in error is one symptom of a service under intolerable strain.

We are putting in new guardrails around an archaic system, with tougher new checks, reviewing specific failings and modernising prison processes and joint working with courts – all to bear down on the increase in mistakes.

That is what victims deserve. That is what the public expects, and this Government will do what it takes to protect the public.

A new Justice Performance Board will give the Deputy Prime Minister greater oversight of the system and drive improvements in prisons and criminal courts, laser-focussed on addressing key metrics including releases in error. The Board is bringing together the most senior officials within the Ministry of Justice and first met yesterday. It will continue to meet every month until performance improves.

A new urgent hotline staffed by court experts will allow prisons to quickly escalate queries relating to warrants – with rapid clarifications helping to reduce the risk of errors. Court staff must also now confirm orders verbally with judges before finalising them, and any late requests for changes must be sent directly to the relevant prison.

The measures include a relentless focus on data, with a new team of data scientists deployed to review all historic releases in error to understand what went wrong in every case.

This work will support the independent review, led by Dame Lynne Owens, launched last month into release errors across the prison estate which will be expanded to consider how accuracy and the transparency around mistaken release data can be improved. This review is expected to report back in February 2026.

It comes as new figures published today, ordered by the Deputy Prime Minister, revealed there have been 91 releases in error from April 2025 to October 2025.

Release errors have been rising for many years and are symptomatic of the prison system crisis this Government inherited, with jails dangerously full and close to collapse.

Since coming into office, the government has taken decisive action to end the prison crisis, stabilising the immediate chaos inherited and rescuing the system before being able to make the long-term change needed.

An extra 14,000 prison places will be built by this government, while sentences will be overhauled to make sure we have enough prison places to lock up dangerous criminals and keep the public safe. The Government has already delivered 2,500 new places in just over a year, as part of the biggest prison expansion programme since the Victorian era. The last Government added only 500 places to the prison estate in the previous 14 years.