Women’s Aid responds to Government plans to release recalled prisoners early

Isabelle Younane, Head of External Affairs at Women’s Aid said: 

“Since the introduction of the Early Release Scheme (SDS40) Women’s Aid has expressed concerns around how Government can ensure that its approach to addressing prison overcrowding does not come at the expense of the safety of women and children – particularly in the context of its commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. 

Sadly, we’ve seen these risks become a reality and women and children are not being protected. We’ve heard from member services about predatory perpetrators with a long history of domestic abuse being released early, only to reoffend within days. 

While we recognise the need to address prison overcrowding, Government plans to release prisoners who have been recalled to custody after just 28 days raises fresh concerns that perpetrators of domestic will be among those released. We urge Government to set out how it will guarantee dangerous perpetrators will be exempt from this new scheme, as so many slipped through the net as part of SDS40. 

The nature of domestic abuse means that the risk of repeat offending is high.  All steps need to be taken to ensure that women and children who are experiencing domestic abuse are not put at further risk of harm or re-traumatisation.”