'Victims must come first' is an easy promise for any politician to make, but an extraordinarily difficult one to honour.

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For survivors of rape, abuse and serious violence, sentencing policy will never be an abstract debate about prison capacity. Rather, it determines when the person responsible for the worst experience of their life may return to the community. Imagine discovering that this could happen much earlier than you had been led to expect.

That is why the controversy surrounding the government’s early-release plans matters – and why Prime Minister Andy Burnham must stop making promises to victims before establishing whether he can keep them.

The Sentencing Act 2026 introduced reforms intended, in part, to relieve the severe pressure on our overcrowded prisons. Section 23 changes the point at which some prisoners serving fixed-term sentences will be automatically released.

The precise rules are complex and depend upon the offence, the type of sentence and the law under which it was imposed. But for some prisoners, the practical effect is straightforward: release after one-third of a sentence rather than........

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