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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
Boris Johnson’s former top aide Dominic Cummings has accused him of binning a solution to the current prisons crisis three years ago.
In an extraordinary move thousands of prisoners are set to be released early on Tuesday to prevent the UK’s jails running out of space.
Mr Cummings said emergency action was taken in 2020 after the prime minister was warned that within just a few years the country’s prisons would be full.
But Mr Johnson “binned” the measures in 2021, he added.
“The early release disaster is the opposite of ‘shocking’. It was predicted years ago and our Idiocracy has done it deliberately,” he said.
Labour ministers have said they had no option but to free offenders, blaming the Tories for the state of the justice system.
The policy will prevent the “unchecked criminality” that would erupt if the courts were no longer able to send criminals away because prisons are full, Downing Street has said.
But the prisons watchdog has warned it is “inevitable” some of those released will reoffend.
Around 1,700 prisoners in England and Wales are set to be let go, on top of the around 1,000 prisoners normally freed on an average week.
Mr Cummings, who spectacularly fell out with Mr Johnson before he left Downing Street, said on X, former Twitter, that the then PM had been warned in 2020 that “prisons would run out of space by winter 2023. We started emergency action.”
But he added that Mr Johnson “binned” that action just a year later, in 2021.
Subsequent prime ministers Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss ignored the problem and “refused to act”, he said. “The early release disaster is the opposite of ‘shocking’. It was predicted years ago and our Idiocracy has done it deliberately. When you see child abusers, killers and repeat rapists released early, remember *The system is working as intended*.”
The National Audit Office warned in February 2020 that jails could run out of space by 2023.
The chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor has said that ministers “had no choice but to do something” about overcrowding because “the bath was in danger of overflowing, and they either had to turn the taps off or they had to let some water out”.
But he also warned some of those released would be homeless, which could increase their risk of reoffending.
Mr Taylor’s comments came as his annual report was released, in which he warned the number of prisoners is projected to grow by about 27,000 by 2028.
The prison population reached a new record high of 88,521 on Friday and has risen by more than 1,000 over the last month.
