Hundreds of criminals are being released early from prisons in England and Wales under new rules introduced to prevent facilities reaching capacity.
The first 700 of an expected 4,500 inmates eligible under the scheme were due to be let out on Thursday.
The government has stressed they will remain subject to strict monitoring arrangements, including the expanded use of electronic tagging, and has said action was needed to prevent prisons from becoming full.
But the plan has been strongly criticised by victims and questions have been raised over whether the Probation Service has sufficient resources to monitor thousands more criminals in the community.
Prisons in England and Wales are a matter of months away from reaching capacity, with Ministry of Justice data showing as of Monday 87,499 people were incarcerated, taking prison population levels up to 98.2 per cent.
Thursday’s release is the first of 10 scheduled to take place, with the final slated for June 2027.
Prisoners released initially were serving sentences of up to 19 months, with the most serious offenders – serving fixed sentences of more than 12 years – leaving in later waves.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Treasury minister James Murray said: “I know the level of concern and maybe anger will be intense, and it’s worth me making clear that this is not a situation where there is any good solution – there’s just a series of very difficult choices we’ve got to take.”
He said the government “inherited a prison system on the brink” and without early releases the country would face a situation where “people who are arrested now can’t go behind bars”.
Murray said measures were in place to restrict criminals’ movements in the community, adding: “I can’t guarantee exactly what will happen, but I can tell people we have done everything we can to reduce the amount of people being released as far possible.”