Britain's prisons are nearly full (Image: Getty)
Prisons are perilously close to a "one in, one out" policy after the overcrowding crisis behind bars intensified over the Bank Holiday weekend.
The number of spare prison places in male jails fell to just 100, it emerged on Tuesday - the closest the UK has ever been to running out of cells.
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In a Downing Street speech, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer slammed the “fundamental failure” of not ensuring there are enough prison places to lock up criminals.
And the Ministry of Justice may yet have to trigger Operation Brinker – which has never been activated before – to keep suspects in police cells for longer.
Justice chiefs are hoping they won't be overwhelmed before September 10 (Image: Getty)
Under the contingency scheme, the Prison Service would provide a set number of cells each day and suspects could be driven around the country to find a space.
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Police fear that if Operation Brinker is introduced, it could limit their ability to arrest suspects as available police cells fill up with people who should be in jail.
Sir Keir admitted he did not know if the riots would overwhelm the criminal justice system.
He said: “Every day of that disorder, literally every day, we had to check the precise number of prison places and where those places were to make sure we could arrest, charge and prosecute people quickly.
“Not having enough prison places is about as fundamental a failure as you can get and those people throwing rocks, torching cars, making threats, they didn't just know the system was broken, they were betting on it, gaming it.
“They thought: 'Ah, they'll never arrest me and if they do, I won't be prosecuted, and if I am, I won't get much of a sentence.'
“They saw the cracks in our society after 14 years of failure and they exploited them. That's what we've inherited. Not just an economic black hole, a societal black hole and that's why we have to take action and do things differently.”
But a sharp increase in the number of arrests over the Bank Holiday is understood to have put further strain on an already creaking system.
In July, the Labour Government set out emergency legislation to reduce the amount of time inmates must spend in jail before they are automatically released from 50 percent of their sentence to 40 percent.
The Prime Minister has now claimed the early-release scheme was an essential part of the Government's response to the riots and its ability to prosecute perpetrators of the violence.
The legislation - which does not apply to those convicted of sex offences, terrorism, domestic abuse or some violent offences - is expected to result in 5,500 offenders being released in September and October.
On the risks of the early-release scheme, Sir Keir said: "We put in place a framework to ensure that we don't release those who create the greatest risk, that's a basic safeguard that we've had to put in.
"And I'm not pretending for one minute that this is a decision I want to make. I spent five years prosecuting people and putting them in prison. The idea of releasing people who should be in prison because the prisons are too full and we don't have the places goes against everything I've worked for for years.
"But we've got to face facts - [the last government] haven't built the prisons, they've pretended you can have longer and longer sentences, send more people to prison and at the same time you could veto or choose not to have a prison built near you.
"They were false choices, and here we are without the prison places that we need."
The MoJ has already activated Operation Early Dawn, under which defendants are kept in police cells until prison spaces become available.
But the mother of a 14-year-old killed in a machete attack says her son has had "no justice" after one of his killers is to be freed early from prison.
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Gordon Gault died days after being injured in November 2022 following a feud between rival gangs in Newcastle.
Lawson Natty, 18, was sentenced to two years eight months for manslaughter in March, alongside Carlos Neto, also 18. However, Natty's release has been brought forward under the Government’s emergency scheme to deal with overcrowding.
Gordon's mother, Dionne Barrett, told BBC Radio Newcastle she "couldn't speak" after receiving a phone call about Natty's release, before an official letter arrived to explain the decision.
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"I was so shocked. I put the phone down, and had to call back because I couldn’t make sense of it. I still can't," she said.
"Gordon’s had no justice whatsoever. It's giving the message out ... take a knife, and you'll only do a couple months.
"I've had so much anger. It infuriates me."