Happy prisoner release day, one and all! Today’s move to let out the lags is all part of the Ministry of Justice’s efforts to ease the pressures on Britain’s overburdened prisons. To mark this auspicious occasion, hacks across the country have descended on various prisons to interview inmates being released to the outside world. And after doing time at His Majesty’s pleasure, the hardened ‘crims certainly seem to have a way with words…
Quote of the day surely has to go to the Daily Mail for this dispatch from HMP Isis, a Category C young offenders institution in Thamesmead. The paper writes evocatively that ‘as the sun rose in London today’ the first inmates to be released were ‘greeted by family members’. One of those, Djaber Benallaoua, 20, a convicted drug dealer, was asked how he felt. He declared the early release policy had made him a ‘lifelong Labour voter’, saying:
I thank Labour. Because I’ve come out five or six months early than I was supposed to so I’m just happy.
Benallaoua went on: ‘It’s a very good policy because it’s given a lot of prisoners a lot of hope. When prisoners found out they’d be released early they were very positive.’ Another inmate, Daniel Rutuls, thanked Sir Keir for the policy, saying it was a ‘smart decision’.
The 19-year-old was released a month early after spending almost a year-and-a-half inside, having been given a three-year sentence for aggravated burglary. Asked by waiting hacks if he had a message for Sir Keir Starmer, he declared: ‘Thank you, and it’s a smart decision, because now you’ve got more space.’ And he said he would ‘100 per cent’ vote Labour now.
That’ll make up for all those lost pensioners eh?
