Symptoms of a Failing System

Just caught up with this from the Institute for Government:-

The mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu is a symptom of a failing system

The problems in criminal justice run far deeper than one high-profile error. The dramatic rise in prisoners released in error is just one aspect of a collapsing criminal justice system, argues Cassia Rowland

Prisons are rarely at the top of the political news cycle – and when they are, it’s never good news. The mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu, the former asylum seeker whose charge and conviction for sexual assault triggered violent unrest in Essex this summer, was the last thing the government needed in a week already full of negative headlines. But the dire state of prisons means it was just a matter of time until something like this happened.

Prisons are failing at their most basic requirements

In this year’s Public Services Performance Tracker we highlight just how bad things are in prisons. Prisons are often dangerous and overrun with drugs. A quarter of prisoners are kept in cells that do not meet fire safety standards1 and rates of violence are skyrocketing. There were more than 30,000 assaults in 2024 – equating to one incident for every three prisoners. And more than one in ten of those are serious, including those resulting in concussions, burns and broken bones.

Conditions are inhumane. Prisoners struggle to get toilet paper for their cells or sometimes have to choose between a hot meal and a shower. Two-thirds of prisoners are locked in their cells for at least 18 hours a day, with little access to education or employment. In this context, it is little wonder that prison releases have also been affected. The number of releases ‘in error’ has jumped dramatically, rising to 262 in 2024/25: more than double the previous year and almost four and half times what it was ten years before.

Staff inexperience, policy changes and the ongoing capacity crisis are all contributing to these failures

The blame for mistaken releases can partly be laid on staff inexperience. More than half of prison officers in March 2025 had been in the job less than five years, compared to just 22% in March 2010. A quarter had less than two years’ experience.4 Inexperienced officers may be more likely to make mistakes and are less likely to have the confidence to speak up if it seems like something’s not right.

Calculating a prisoner’s release date has also become much more complicated. Until 2020, almost all prisoners serving a fixed length sentence were released halfway through their sentence, serving the rest under probation supervision in the community.

Now, some offenders are released automatically after 40% of their sentence, some after 50%, some after 66%; others simply become eligible to apply to be released after half or two thirds of their sentence. The operational guidance for calculating when a prisoner should be released is 144 pages long – and doesn’t even cover the emergency early release measures used over the last two years.

But the biggest reason for the increase is the capacity crisis and the emergency release measures governments have been forced to adopt to manage it. Since the 2000s, successive governments, of all stripes, have failed to build enough prison places to meet growing demand while the Ministry of Justice suffered steep cuts during the 2010s, including both day-to-day spending and prison maintenance and expansion.

Under the Sunak government, prisons took an ad hoc approach to early releases, letting prisoners out days or weeks early at very short notice to free up space as they needed it. Labour’s scheme to release most prisoners after 40% of their sentence has been fairer and more predictable, but has still made it more complicated to figure out when prisoners should be released. The churn in the prison population has also risen sharply, with more people coming in and out of prison and lots more people being recalled to prison after release. This again makes it more difficult keeping track of who is coming into prison and when they need to be released.

The government needs to keep focusing on fixing the systemic problems

We don’t know exactly what went wrong in this specific instance, and it was a particularly serious failing given the seriousness of the offences and because Kebatu should have been deported, rather than simply being released a few days or weeks early. The justice secretary, David Lammy, is right to want to know precisely how this happened.

Given the increasing complexity of calculating prisoners’ release dates, introducing additional checks is probably sensible – depending on what exactly they are. Having all ‘high profile’ releases reviewed by the Ministry of Justice, as has been suggested, seems like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but there may be other safeguards that can be introduced without creating unnecessary admin.

The most important task, however, is getting the prison system back on its feet. That means reducing pressure on prison spaces. The Sentencing Bill, currently making its way through parliament, will help with that, but capacity will remain on a knife edge until at least late 2027. Crucially, making a success of the reforms requires substantial investment in community sentences and rehabilitation, to provide courts with an effective alternative to prison and keep people from bouncing in and out of custody. Without that, the prison system will remain under acute pressure and further errors like this one will be more and more likely.

Cassia Rowland

Related content The crisis in prisons