Latest news with #earlyrelease
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Portland Public Schools to release 3 hours early Monday due to high heat
PORTLAND, Ore. () — Portland Public Schools announced they will be releasing all students three hours early on Monday, June 9, due to high heat. 'Check on friends, family' in record-heat spells With temperatures once again expected to hit above 90 degrees on Monday, PPS officials said in a that 'the sustained high temperatures and limited overnight cooling present significant health and safety concerns, especially in our schools without air conditioning.' The early release times are listed below: Elementary schools – 11:30 a.m. K-8 schools – 12:30 p.m. Middle schools – 1 p.m. High schools – 12:30 p.m. 'This decision prioritizes the wellbeing of students and staff, ensuring that everyone can return home safely before the hottest part of the day,' PPS officials said. After-school activities sponsored by the district will also be canceled, including childcare services. Athletic programs will follow and make decisions about practices and activities. Students will be served meals before being dismissed from schools, officials said. PPS has about their heat safety response. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Guardian
03-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
How to make early prison release work
Sir Mark Rowley is completely justified in his fears for public safety (UK's most senior police officer criticises early prison release scheme, 28 May). We confuse the lines between punishment, prison sentencing, deterrence and the desire to prevent reoffending. We can readily identify those who are less likely to reoffend – those who are over 25 and no longer testosterone-fuelled, those who do not have a drug habit, have a home and family to go to, and a means of earning an income. We know, too, that if prison works as a deterrence, its greatest impact is in the first few days of being there. Thereafter, life becomes institutionalised. Releasing those from prison who qualify as above, and allowing them to satisfy their sentences with meaningful community employment, may not be the fairest way of reducing the number of people currently in prison, but it is likely to be the safest and most effective way forward for the convicted individual, the taxpayer and society as a LeslauHenley on Thames, Oxfordshire Police chiefs complain that violent criminals released early will affect public safety. This is misleading. First, only 5.7% of crimes lead to an arrest, and some are acquitted. It follows that at any time, the great majority of perpetrators of violent crime are on the streets. Early releases will make a relatively small difference. Second, a violent criminal will currently be released after half their sentence. Say they are 30 years old. This gives them decades to commit further crimes. Adding one or two years to this will not have much impact on total crime. Third, some of those released early will be convicted of a further crime sooner and return to prison for longer, reducing the impact of early release. A complex issue is being highly oversimplified by the police WestLondon As you rightly point out in your editorial (The Guardian view on sentencing reform: a landmark chance for change, 25 May): 'The review rightly says that relationships between probation staff and offenders should get priority.' What is not mentioned are the enormous cost savings in moving from prison to community service sentences (estimated to be as much 40 times less). These huge cost savings would pay for all the additional probation staff, as well for much improved training and professionalisation for supervisors, upon which the long-term success of this scheme crucially HartCommunity service supervisor, East Northamptonshire, 1977-80 Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Telegraph
31-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The Government's ill-judged prisoner-release scheme puts the public at risk
SIR – I, along with the majority of my countrymen, am appalled by the Government's decision to release certain prisoners early (' Met chief: Starmer's early release scheme will lead to more crime ', report, May 28). This is to compensate for the shortage of prison spaces, as our population grows ever larger, in part due to poorly controlled immigration. First, the punishment meted out by the courts should match the gravity of the crime. Stricter sentencing would surely act as a deterrent to help reduce criminality, whereas the present system allows certain sentences to be commuted or for the prisoner to be granted parole. This in itself creates too much recidivism, and it is now to be exacerbated by the early release of offenders, many of whom are likely to reoffend. This is not the decision of a sensible government that is weighing up all the facts with balanced judgment. Secondly, we should consider our already overworked police officers, many of whom do a fantastic job and lack the high regard they deserve, particularly given the much wider range of policing responsibilities they are now expected to undertake compared to 20 years ago. Policing the streets is of paramount importance, especially in inner-city areas, where regard for the law is often lax. Presumably the Government will now expect the police to monitor those on early release. What has happened to our once highly regarded system of justice and policing? It appears to be yet another casualty of this ludicrous Labour Government. Tony Millard Redhill, Surrey SIR – Week after week, our local magistrates' court deals with an endless list of people who have been caught driving drunk or high on drugs. At present, they are fined and disqualified from driving for a period. Isn't it time that our society made people wholly responsible for their actions, by imposing a lifetime driving ban on them if caught? It may make them think twice before getting behind the wheel when they are drunk or stoned, and consider the devastating impact that such selfish behaviour could have on others. It would also save the magistrates from having to deal with repeat offenders. The roads are dangerous enough without people who view driving as a right, rather than as a privilege with enormous responsibilities. Andy Breare Plymouth, Devon
BBC News
30-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Essex Police chief worried about early prisoner release plan
A senior police officer admitted he was worried about government plans to release prisoners from custody inmates in England and Wales could be eligible for release after serving a third of their sentence under proposed Harrington, chief constable of Essex Police, said it would heap pressure on his officers and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said it would increase annual probation funding by up to £700m by 2029 to meet demand. The reforms, proposed in an independent sentencing review, said more offenders should be managed in the community rather than in year, thousands of inmates were released early in an emergency measure to deal with prison overcrowding. Essex Police manages about 3,000 offenders, of whom 2,100 are registered sex Harrington told the BBC he was not sure how many prisoners could be released early in the county."When people are in the community, we've got to look after them," he said."Where they reoffend, where they break the law, where they ignore that opportunity and cause hurt, then we have to deal with it."He added: "It does worry me because it puts extra demand on my officers and staff."The police chief also feared the impact the plans could have on victims if a person was released and said: "How do the victims of these crimes feel when someone who may have committed a violent crime and given three years in prison is released on parole, and then they breach that licence?"If I was a victim of crime, I'd be worried about that." The government commissioned the Independent Sentencing Review to look into the causes of the prison overcrowding the report released on 22 May, former Lord Chancellor David Gauke warned "we cannot build our way out of" the situation and creating extra prisons would not be enough.A MoJ spokeswoman said: "The first job of any government is to keep people safe."That is why we are building prisons faster than at any time since the Victorian era and, through our sentencing reforms, we will make sure the public are never again put at risk of running out of prison places."She said further investment in the Probation Service would help authorities tag and monitor "tens of thousands more" offenders. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Telegraph
28-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Met chief: Starmer's early release scheme will lead to more crime
Sir Keir Starmer's early release schemes for prisoners will lead to more crime, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has warned. Sir Mark Rowley said a proportion of offenders who would otherwise remain in prison would commit 'further offences' if they are freed early under the Ministry of Justice's (MoJ) shake-up of sentencing. The Met Commissioner called for extra funding, and said the Government had not assessed the impact the early release scheme would have on policing those who could be freed as little as a third of the way through their sentences. 'A proportion of those who would have been in prison will be committing further offences because probation can't do a perfect job. It's impossible. That extra offending is work that police have to do to protect communities,' Sir Mark said. 'That involves more arrests, more cases, we'll get more prison recalls. We're the agency tasked with chasing around offenders who don't want to be caught, and using all our covert tactics and surveillance teams to find people who are now at large and a risk to communities. So this will generate a lot of work for the police.' His comments come days after police chiefs wrote to Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, warning of the need for extra resources for police and probation to cope with the early release of thousands more prisoners. They said there would be a surge in reoffending by freed prisoners unless Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, provided more funding for probation officers in her spending review, which is set to take place on June 11. They feared the plans could be 'of net detriment to public safety'. Up to 43,000 criminals are set to avoid prison each year under government plans to combat jail overcrowding, according to an analysis of official figures by The Telegraph. The criminals, including burglars, shoplifters and knife offenders, will instead face community sentences under the plans to scrap most jail terms of under 12 months. The analysis also reveals that up to 1,500 killers, rapists and other serious offenders will be eligible for early release each year if they behave well under the shake-up, which is designed to free up nearly 10,000 prison spaces. Up to a further 28,600 offenders on standard determinate sentences will be eligible for release as little as a third of the way through their sentences, depending on behaviour. However, Sir Mark said that while an extra £700 million had been earmarked for probation, there had been no impact analysis of the sentencing reforms on the police, which could cost forces 'hundreds of millions'. 'They've done no analysis on the impact on policing. No analysis of that whatsoever. So that has been settled without any analysis of the impact on policing, the effect on us,' he said. 'Every time you put an offender into the community, a proportion of them will commit crime, and a portion of them will need chasing down by the police,' he said. Sir Mark said police chiefs had asked the MoJ for data on the types of offenders to be released early 'to help us respond to the extra demand on communities '. He was among six senior police chiefs who warned Sir Keir Starmer that without significant extra funding, he will fail to deliver his crime pledges to halve knife crime, reduce violence against women and girls and recruit 13,000 extra officers. He said that while the Government's pledges on law and order were 'balanced and sensible', they were also 'very, very ambitious'. Sir Mark added: 'We're carrying the scar tissue of years of austerity cuts, and the effects of that. Forces are much smaller, when you compare the population they're policing, than they were a decade or 15 years ago.' However, he insisted that police forces were 'not just asking for more money', but wanted 'radical reform' as well. He said: 'We think there should be fewer police organisations across the country that can be more efficient, more capable. We need a proper national police agency that helps co-ordinate things. 'So we're up for change, we're up for doing things differently, we're up for radically reforming. But it also needs more money, because policing is a people game.' A MoJ spokesman said: 'This Government inherited prisons in crisis, close to collapse. We will never put the public at risk by running out of prison places again. 'We are building new prisons, on track for 14,000 places by 2031 – the largest expansion since the Victorians. Our sentencing reforms will force prisoners to earn their way to release or face longer in jail for bad behaviour, while ensuring the most dangerous offenders can be kept off our streets. 'We will also increase probation funding by up to £700 million by 2028-29 to tag and monitor tens of thousands more offenders in the community.'
