United Kingdom: Starmer's government locks up protesters in police stations to avoid collapsing the prison system

The U.K. government will have to take extraordinary measures to manage the latest large wave of arrests in the country, the result of the crackdown on demonstrations that erupted in various parts of the country following the deaths of three girls in a knife attack.

Keir Starmer's Labour Party administration announced the implementation of the "Early Dawn" plan to prevent the country's prison system from collapsing in the face of the increasing number of those prosecuted and convicted for the mass disturbances over the past few weeks.

Under these new government orders, those British citizens awaiting trial will be allowed to remain in police cells for longer than normally stipulated by current rules. The aim is to save space in British prisons, under pressure from the more than 1,000 express trials faced by protesters.

Collapsed judicial system

According to Sky News, prosecutors have been trying to speed up the cases of people accused of involvement in the recent riots in some parts of the UK. More than a hundred protesters have already been convicted, courts heard last week. The pressure would be of much greater intensity in the northern and northeastern regions of the country, where the protests originated.

Prison Officers Association chairman Mark Fairhurst, told the BBC that in the second week of August, the prison system had the highest number of admissions he had seen in his career. For Fairhurst, the number of arrests this summer is such that it has a "massive knock-on effect on the entire justice system," as police cells were filled up, meaning officers did not have "the power to arrest people and put them away."

Labour blames previous government

The British Secretary of State for Prisons, William Timpson, claimed that if the UK prison system is on the verge of bankruptcy it is because of what the Conservative governments left behind.

The government's plan even aims to release a good number of criminals early, in order to free up space in prisons. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood also plans to temporarily reduce the proportion of the sentence that must be served before parole is possible from 50% to 40%. 

Thanks to this measure, around 5,000 people would be released from prison between now and October, according to Sky News estimates. It will not apply to those convicted of terrorism, sexual offenses, domestic abuse and some other violent crimes. The government assured that people involved in the riots will also be ineligible for the measure.