Fewer women could be sent to jail under a review to be announced by ministers this week that is expected to cut sentences for thousands of criminals.
The government will lay the groundwork for the task of reshaping the sentencing regime in England and Wales, with the aim for it to be completed within six months.
The review will examine a number of options including scrapping short sentences, treating more offenders in the community and the impact of sentencing on people with caring responsibilities – areas of policy that disproportionately affect female offenders.
Ministers are also expected to confirm that David Gauke, the former Conservative justice secretary, will oversee the review. Its proposals could be in place in courts by early 2026, sources said.
The disclosures come as the government prepares to release a further 1,100 prisoners under the SDS40 early-release scheme on Tuesday amid growing concern over the creaking criminal justice system.
In further developments, it has also emerged that:
Internal data shows that prisons are expected to be full again by the summer of 2025.
Ministers are examining measures to ease pressure on prisons to cover a period of at least nine months before the sentencing review’s proposals can be introduced.
The outsourcing company Serco has seconded extra staff to tag prisoners, after being handed a six-figure fine for failing to tag dozens of offenders released last month.
There are more than 3,600 female prisoners in England and Wales – a number the Ministry of Justice projects will rise to 4,200 by November 2027. Of 117 prisons in England and Wales, 12 are women’s prisons.
About two-thirds of those women are imprisoned for non-violent offences and most (55%) are victims of domestic abuse.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, told Labour party conference last month of her intention to introduce measures to reduce the number of females in the prison estate and close some women’s prisons.
“For women, prison isn’t working. Rather than encouraging rehabilitation, prison forces women into a life of crime. After leaving a short custodial sentence, a woman is significantly more likely to commit a further crime than one given a non-custodial sentence. It is clear now, that if we change how we treat women in prison we cut crime, keep families together, and end the harm that passes from one generation to the next,” she told delegates.
Mahmood announced that a women’s justice board would be set up with the aim of reducing the number of women sent to prison, chaired by a minister, and a strategy would be published in the spring.
It will work in conjunction with the sentencing review to consider introducing alternatives to custodial sentences for low-level, non-violent offences. The review, which is expected to be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday, will be under pressure to come forward with proposals within months because the prison system in England and Wales is forecast to run out of space again by late summer 2025, sources said.
Any changes to sentencing laws will have to apply to both male and female prisoners. Government sources said it would breach the Equalities Act if female offenders were treated more favourably.
Sources said it was likely that fewer shoplifters would be sent to prison after the review – a offence committed frequently by female offenders.
Gauke was first disclosed by the Observer last month to be the favourite to take up the new role on the sentencing review. In 2019, when he was justice secretary, Gauke questioned the effectiveness of short sentences and said there was a strong case for those of six months or less to be scrapped altogether.
He said there was a “strong case to abolish sentences of six months or less altogether, with some closely defined exceptions, and put in their place, a robust community order regime”.
On Tuesday, 1,100 prisoners who were given sentences of more than five years will be released. It follows the release on 10 September of 1,700 prisoners who were serving sentences of less than five years.
Serco is facing a six-figure fine for failing to tag prisoners during the first SDS40 release. It is understood that it received a dressing down from Mahmood and James Timpson, the prisons minister, over the tagging failure.
Serco has brought in dozens of staff from other projects to work on the second SDS40 release. A spokesperson said: “We have mobilised sufficient additional resources to deal with the numbers we have been advised to expect as a result of the prisoner early release scheme (SDS40) planned for late October.”
The review will be announced following several days of radical changes announced by Mahmood’s department. On Thursday, she announced plans to give magistrates in England and Wales fresh powers to hand down longer custodial sentences to help reduce the backlog in crown courts and prisons.
Barristers have questioned whether the measure will work, pointing to a failed attempt to give sentencing powers to magistrates two years ago under the then justice secretary, Dominic Raab.
Andrew Neilson, the director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, welcomed the review of sentences. He said: “This review of sentencing will be the most important since the Halliday report of 2001 and it should consider the impact of subsequent legislation, in particular the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which has inflated sentencing and led to the current crisis in prison capacity.”
