Rishi Sunak and his former ministers are “the guilty men” who should be held responsible for “the most disgraceful dereliction of duty” by failing to address the prisons crisis, the justice secretary has said. Speaking as she set out plans to release thousands of inmates early to ease pressure in overcrowded jails, Shabana Mahmood said the Conservatives “had left the country threatened with a total breakdown of law and order”. Writing in the Guardian, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, underlined the severity of the problem. He said his first week in office had made clear to him the Tories had been “arrogant, reckless and irresponsible to the very end ... they’ll go down in history as the government that fiddled while the country burned”. Mahmood set out emergency measures to prevent the prison system from reaching the point of collapse. In a speech at HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough, the justice secretary said jails had been operating at 99% capacity since the start of 2023. “Those responsible – Sunak and his gang in No 10 – should go down in history as the guilty men. The guilty men who put their political careers ahead of the safety and security of our country. It was the most disgraceful dereliction of duty I have ever known.” She added: “Time and again, they ducked the difficult decisions that could have addressed this challenge. Instead, they kept the public in the dark about the state they had left this country in.” Thousands of prisoners will be released under the new scheme after they have served 40% of their sentences. The government would also recruit 1,000 probation officers to solve an overcrowding crisis that threatened “a total breakdown of law and order”, Mahmood announced. She described the policy as “the only way to avert disaster”, saying if prisons were to run out of places, courts would be forced to delay jailing offenders and police unable to arrest dangerous criminals – a crisis that would leave the public at risk. “If we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system. And a total breakdown of law and order,” she said at a press conference at HMP Five Wells in Northamptonshire. From September, the government will temporarily reduce the proportion of certain custodial sentences served in prison from 50% to 40% in England and Wales. It says it will implement safeguards and exemptions to keep the public safe and clear release plans to manage offenders safely in the community. Sentences for serious violent offences of four years or more and sexual offences will be automatically excluded. In a distinction from the end of custody supervised licence scheme (ECSL), the early release of offenders in prison for crimes related to domestic abuse will also be excluded. This will include: Stalking offences. Controlling or coercive behaviours in an intimate or family relationship. Non-fatal strangulation and suffocation. Breach of restraining order, non-molestation order, and domestic abuse protection order. The scheme is expected to allow several thousand prisoners to leave early this year. Sources said the numbers would be eased out gradually. Some violent offenders with a sentence of less than four years will be eligible for the scheme, however. Responding to the announcement, the domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, welcomed efforts to protect women who had been attacked by their partners, but added that two-thirds of probation areas were struggling to protect the public. “Victims, and the specialist services who support them, must be kept informed about early release plans, and offenders managed robustly in the community. This temporary scheme must be exactly that – temporary,” she said. During her first visits as lord chancellor, Mahmood met probation staff before a tour of HMP Bedford and HMP Five Wells before delivering a speech to highlight the dire state of prisons. She said: “When prisons are full, violence rises – putting prison officers on the frontline at risk. When no cells are available, suspects cannot be held in custody. This means vanloads of dangerous people circling the country, with nowhere to go. The police would have to use their cells as a prison overflow, keeping officers off the streets. Soon, the courts would grind to a halt, unable to hold trials. “With officers unable to act, criminals could do whatever they want, without consequence. We could see looters running amok, smashing in windows, robbing shops and setting neighbourhoods alight. In short, if we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system. And a total breakdown of law and order.” The chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, said: “It is pleasing to see the new government has taken action on this pressing issue so quickly. We are supporting the Ministry of Justice and other partners in the criminal justice system to manage the impact of these changes, particularly around supporting victims, families and others who will be affected.” With only hundreds of places left in the adult male estate, prisons have been routinely operating at more than 99% capacity since the start of 2023. Prison cells are expected to run out within weeks, the government has said. Before setting out the next steps to tackle this impending crisis, Mahmood confirmed the ECSL scheme, introduced by the previous government in October 2023, would come to an end. The early release scheme was designed to address capacity pressures on the prison estate. Prisoners were initially released 18 days early but the measure has been repeatedly expanded over the past six months. Over the course of the scheme, more than 10,000 offenders were released. Anyone released under the new scheme would be strictly monitored on licence by the Probation Service through measures that could include electronic tagging and curfews, justice officials said. Those freed face being recalled to prison if they breach their licence conditions. The rules will not apply to most serious offenders, who already either spend two-thirds of their sentence behind bars or have their release determined by the Parole Board. Despite the extra probation officers, unions expressed concerns about the service’s ability to deal with more releases and called for higher pay. Ben Priestley, the head of probation at Unison, said: “The probation service will be crucial to delivering this early release scheme because these individuals will need supervision. But the service isn’t adequately resourced for this at present.” Martin Jones, the chief inspector of probation, also expressed concerns about the capacity and readiness of the probation service. “It’s really important to say the probation service has a caseload nearly three times the number of those in prison,” he told Times Radio. “Now, they need to ensure that they identify the risk that those people represent and that they identify what their needs are when they leave prison. Do they have accommodation? Do they have jobs to go to? Do they have, for example, drugs and mental health support in the community? Now, my concern is, is there enough time to get that right, to ensure they get the right information and that they can then deal with those people effectively when they leave prison.” Mahmood said: “There is now only one way to avert disaster. I do not choose to do this because I want to … but we are taking every protection that is available to us … let me be clear, this is an emergency measure. This is not a permanent change. I am unapologetic in my belief that criminals must be punished.” Mahmood also set out plans to recruit more than 1,000 additional trainee probation officers by March 2025, allowing for greater oversight and management of offenders once they leave. She added: “The measures I have set out are not a silver bullet. But … they will give us the time we need to address the prisons crisis, not just today but for years to come. That means continuing the prison building programme. And only by driving down reoffending will we ever find a sustainable solution to the prisons crisis.”