Early release prisoners given tents after Probation Service housing shortage

Early release prisoners who have nowhere to live are being handed tents after the Probation Service ran out of appropriate housing, according to a whistleblower. They revealed that around 100 tents were handed to prisoners who had been released under the government's early release scheme in the past year. The whistleblower's claims appear to match reports from charities, who allege probation officers had been asking for tents to distribute.

Labour's new early release system allows prisoners to be freed as early as a third of a way into their sentences in an attempt to ease the prison overcrowding crisis. Just this month, around 1,350 prisoners have been freed under the scheme - with that total rising to 4,500 in the next 10 months. Read more: Man in his 30s fatally injured after car crashes into Lidl Supermarket Read more: Treasury adviser quits over claims entrepreneurship seen as a 'sideshow' by government However, a shortage of appropriate housing has resulted in almost one in six prisoners left homeless, fuelling fears of reoffending.

Under the new system, the timeframe for prison officers to find adequate accommodation has been reduced from around a year down to just a few weeks, leaving many scrambling to secure probation hostels and appropriate housing. Charities like The Inside Out Trust - an organisation who works with the Probation Service to provide support to prisoners - said they had delivered more than twenty camping sets to people on probation between March 2024 and January 2025.

Despite this, they have reportedly since been blocked from supplying any further tents and phones to the Probation Service, leaving more prisoners exposed to the elements - a decision they described as "frustrating". LBC have contacted the Probation Service for comment.