Early Prison Releases in England and Wales Face Tag Shortages
Hundreds of prisoners released early across England and Wales, including stalkers and violent offenders, have left custody without electronic tags.
MPs raised the failure on 13 October 2026 as the government began discharging a second tranche of 650 offenders to relieve prison overcrowding. The Guardian
About 2,000 people, including domestic abusers and violent offenders, are being freed in October 2026, with another 3,000 to follow in stages over the next year. The total planned early releases was cut from 6,000 after an intervention by Andy Burnham. Prisoners convicted of manslaughter are excluded, which means the killers of PC Andrew Harper will not be eligible.
Under the rules, those freed early should be electronically tagged and follow other monitoring conditions for the second third of their sentence. An electronic tag is usually an ankle device that records location and checks curfew rules, like a remote check-in with probation.
Labour MP Clive Efford asked in the Commons "why Serco had failed to ensure enough tags for prisoners as they leave each prison." Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy said "the majority of prisoners were not being tagged before release." MPs identified Serco as the contractor responsible for tagging.
A senior Prison and Probation Service source said failure to tag people at release could mean "up to a month before they were tagged." That creates a gap between release and monitoring. Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said "95%-plus of tagging breaches that police arrest are bailed back into the community on the same condition."
The probation service union Napo will launch a formal ballot on industrial action over pay and workloads on 19 October 2026. Napo's negotiating committee rejected a "best and final" conditional pay offer worth 5% in early October 2026.
The prison population in England and Wales jumped by more than 1,700 in the three months before 13 October 2026. More than 10,000 prisoners were freed early between October 2023 and September 2024 under an early release programme introduced by the Conservatives. BBC Britain's Labour government planned in July 2024 to expand early release of prisoners from September 2024 to tackle jail overcrowding. Reuters
Parliamentary scrutiny of releases and tagging predates the current tranche. On 16 June 2026, Sir Ashley Fox asked in oral evidence Q668 "whether the public would be protected from a larger number of prisoners being released early." UK Parliament Serco plc submitted written evidence labelled PPP0019 to the inquiry on Prison population 2022: planning for the future. Written evidence PRF0059 on Prison reform cites the scandal of the SERCO and G4S tagging contracts.
The broader context here is a system where release policy, monitoring capacity and probation workload have to move together, and currently they are not. Tagging was presented as the control that would make earlier discharge workable for the second third of sentences. When tags are unavailable at the prison gate, police and probation absorb the risk, and courts then decide breach cases on bail conditions that officers describe as circular. That explains why the Commons debate focused less on eligibility criteria, which ministers narrowed, and more on implementation.
Looking ahead to the next year, the timetable points to sustained friction. A further 3,000 releases in stages will test Serco delivery and probation supervision at the same time as a formal ballot on industrial action. The reduction from 6,000 to around 5,000 eases headline numbers but does not resolve the tagging lag or the population rise that preceded it. The questions to track are concrete: how long between release and tagging, how breach arrests are disposed, and whether staffing and pay settle before the next tranches leave custody.
