Short-term prisoner release point: responses to targeted consultation

Response from East Lothian Council

Ciara Webb, Service Manager Justice Social Work

East Lothian Council is not in support of the proposed change to release people at 30% of time served.

We recognise the need to reduce the prison population however the provisions introduced in 2024 and 2025 to release individuals serving short-custodial sentences early and to reduce time served in some cases to 40% do not appear to have achieved the intended impact. We would welcome evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of these measures, as we are concerned that they may be creating churn rather than supporting rehabilitation. We also acknowledge that the proposed change would not apply to individuals convicted of sexual or domestic offences.

When someone is given a custodial sentence, their victim will have expected them to be in custody for a determined period of time. The goalposts have already been moved once in this respect, and to move them again might undermine trust in the Justice system and is likely to disrupt the expectation of ‘justice’ held by victims. Any move to 30% of sentence needs to have a corresponding reinforcement of the Victim Notification Scheme and services to support victims of crime, alongside robust, victim-centred safeguards. With early release proposals driven by overcrowding, there is an increasing perception that victim safety is secondary to managing prison numbers.

From a Justice Social Work perspective, we are clear that focus should shift from short custodial sentences to community sentences, where this is appropriate and in line with risk, need, and public protection. In East Lothian, we undertake a quality assurance exercise of the Justice Social Work Report each time a custodial sentence is imposed. Our 2024-5 data indicates that 21 short custodial sentences were imposed, and custody was not considered inevitable in 13 of these cases. This means that in 62% of cases where a short- term sentence was imposed, it was the Social Worker’s assessment that the criminogenic risks and needs could be effectively targeted in the community. In Q1-Q3 2025-6, a short custodial sentence has been imposed in 10 of the 23 cases where a custodial sentence has been imposed. In six of these 23 cases, a robust community disposal was proposed, indicating that the Social Worker’s assessment was that the criminogenic risks and needs could be effectively targeted in the community.

We have an effective prison-release planning group in East Lothian, Transition, that allows for release planning in a collaborative way, ensuring that all necessary support needs (housing, healthcare, employability, finances etc. are in place). Early release schemes have already put significant additional pressure on our services.

We are in the midst of a national Housing Emergency and currently face a significant lack of affordable housing and corresponding homelessness pressures. In respect of homelessness, East Lothian Council continues to report breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order monthly and is therefore legally not compliant with statutory duties. We also have one of the longest length of stays in temporary accommodation nationally. Notwithstanding the challenging context, the Council’s Housing Team has worked hard over the last five years to enable a planned approach to people leaving prison, ensuring sustainable housing outcomes where possible, in accordance with SHORE. Significant work has been carried out in collaboration between Housing, Justice Social Work and Police, with good outcomes achieved. The Council and its partners continue to strive for excellence in this regard. While we understand the pressures on the prison population, the pressures must also be recognised in terms of homelessness and rough sleeping and the wider refugee and asylum seekers policy agenda. Unfortunately, there appears to be limited acknowledgement of this wider context and the impacts on the Housing Team, our homeless population and our wider tenants and residents.

Consideration might be given to re-visiting the long-term prisoner population. During your consultation on changing the release point for long-term prisoners in 2024, it was recognised that there was notable support amongst the responses for increasing the time some long-term prisoners spend in the community, with recognition that this can improve reintegration and other outcomes. Most respondents were supportive in principle to a change in the point of release. Your Occasional Paper, Long-term drivers of and changes in the prison population, published on 11 June 2025, reflects that short-term prisoners now account for a much smaller proportion of the sentenced population. The 2016 change to the release point for long-term prisoners means that long-term prisoners who are not recommended for release by the Parole Board have had to serve a greater proportion of their sentence in prison, thereby increasing the prison population.

We would welcome further consultation on additional measures over and above the short-term prison population to address overcrowding in our prisons.