Justice minister Naomi Long says she will consider further prisoner releases due to Covid-19

Just over 100 prisoners are due to be granted a temporary early release today, a move that was approved by the minister last week.

But speaking to BBC Radio Ulster yesterday morning, Ms Long said there could be further releases next month.

“What we’ve agreed to do is that each month we will look then at the next month at prisoners who would have been due to enter the last three months of their sentence,” she said.

“We will look at those prisoners and see is there a need, first of all, for further releases and if so how many of them would qualify in terms of their risk to public safety.”

She stressed that the potential impact on victims has been considered. “We recognise that any change to someone’s sentence has an impact on victims, so we didn’t enter into this lightly or without thought,” she said.

“It is a temporary measure, and those who still have sentence left to serve when this crisis is over will be returned to prison and will finish their sentence. And they understand that.”

The minister continued: “We have taken a very cautious approach with this in that, for example, anyone who was involved in fairly significant crimes would not be able to be released.

“We’ve also looked, for example, at those who have a history of domestic violence or abuse who returning them to the community could pose a risk to their partner. So we’ve looked at that and removed those people from the scheme.

“We want to release those who are at low risk of re-offending But also we are looking at those who participated well in terms of rehabilitation within the prison system, because many of them will be in that last phase of their release.”

She said the decision was taken, in part, to “ensure that there was a reasonable ratio of prison officers to prisoners at a time when many prison officers themselves are self isolating.”

She added: “When people are put in prison they are there for a reason.

“And so to allow people to leave early is not an easy decision to take.”

Meanwhile, two staff members at north London’s Pentonville Prison have died after suffering Covid-19 symptoms.

The news came as it was announced that up to 4,000 prisoners in England and Wales are to be temporarily released from jail in an effort to control the virus.

In Sri Lanka, around 2,900 prisoners have been released from overcrowded prisons.

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