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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

That is also true. The two issues—prison overcrowding and overstretching of the probation service—come together very neatly in the ECL system. Prisoners who have not been adequately rehabilitated or made ready for resettlement out of prison are being released early. Some might say, ““So what? It is only 18 days””, but with short sentences, it is during the last 18 days that the most important work takes place—drug rehabilitation, introduction to job centres, housing associations and other sources of accommodation, introduction to the national health service and so on. If that does not happen, the probation service is then required to catch these people, who are essentially being thrown out of the back of the aeroplane without a parachute, and look after them.