Shabana Mahmood comments on a Tory minister refusing to deny that criminals may not be jailed because prisons are full

Shabana Mahmood MP, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, commenting on a Tory minister this morning refusing to deny that dangerous criminals may not be sent to jail because prisons are full, said:

"After 13 years of failure with the Conservatives, we are now seeing the serious repercussions of continuously ignoring the warnings on the broken criminal justice system and a prison estate in chaos.

"The Tories are unable to get rapists behind bars and now the public know why.

"People up and down will be asking: if this government can't fulfil the basic duty of keeping criminals locked up, why are they still the government?

“Labour will get on top of the prison crisis by delivering all 20,000 prison places we need and driving down the courts backlog by increasing the number of crown prosecutors to put criminals behind bars.”

Ends

Notes:

• https://x.com/kevinaschofield/status/1712362543153332690?s=46&t=uhvZlH0gHeYaTCcHkZukjA

• Earlier this year, previous Justice Secretary Dominic Raab wrote to the Lord Chief Justice to suggest that judges jail fewer people: https://insidetime.org/revealed-dominic-raabs-controversial-letter-to-judges/