This week’s news has put the government’s review of the early release scheme back in the headlines. Following a review led by Andy Burnham, the government confirmed that offenders convicted of rape, serious child sex offences and grooming offences will now be barred from the sentencing changes that allow prisoners to be released earlier. The changes, part of the Sentencing Act’s “progression model,” are due to come into force on 1 October 2026, alongside a £700m package for probation and community supervision, including GPS tagging and exclusion zones for offenders on release.
At Contento Social Homes, our work is not in policy debate. It is in the day to day reality of helping women and children rebuild their lives after abuse, through safe accommodation, housing support and the practical tools survivors need to move toward independence. But decisions made in Westminster about sentencing and release do not stay in Westminster. They land, eventually, on the doorstep of every refuge, every support worker and every family we house. That is why we think it is worth understanding this review carefully, and why we are choosing to comment on it as an organisation rooted in service rather than campaigning.
What has actually changed
The Sentencing Act’s progression model was designed to ease pressure on an overcrowded prison estate by allowing many offenders serving standard determinate sentences to be released after a smaller proportion of their term, provided they comply with prison rules. More than 18,000 offenders serving life or extended sentences were already excluded. The latest review adds rape, serious child sex offences and grooming offences to that exclusion list, a decision the government says followed direct engagement with victims.
What has not changed, at least so far, is the position of domestic abuse offences within the scheme. Several organisations working directly with survivors, including Refuge and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Nicole Jacobs, have raised concerns that this leaves a gap. Their argument centres on a well documented pattern in domestic abuse cases: risk to a survivor does not end when a sentence is handed down, and in many cases it is highest around points of transition, including release from custody and the period after separation.
What matters beyond the headlines
The data here is sobering and worth sitting with rather than skimming past. Analysis by the Femicide Census and the Office for National Statistics puts the number of women killed by a current or former partner in England and Wales at somewhere between one and two a week on average, depending on the time period measured, with roughly six in ten women killed by men overall being killed by a partner or ex-partner. Separation is consistently identified as one of the highest risk periods, with a substantial share of intimate partner killings occurring among women who had left or were attempting to leave. These are not abstract statistics to the families we house. They describe the exact risk window that safe accommodation exists to manage.
This is also not the first time the boundaries of an early release or sentencing scheme have been contested along similar lines. The 2026 debate echoes earlier discussions around the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025, which built in exceptions for sexual offences and domestic abuse offences from the outset, a model that some campaigners are now pointing to as a precedent England and Wales could have followed.
Where we stand
We are not going to tell you what the government should legislate. Reasonable people, including specialist domestic abuse organisations, victims’ commissioners and MPs across the political spectrum, are still working through what the right balance looks like between prison capacity, public safety and the rights of survivors to feel secure once a case is closed. That is a conversation for policymakers, and it deserves the rigour it is currently getting in Parliament and in the media. What we can speak to, from our own experience, is what happens after a headline like this one. When sentencing or release policy shifts, survivors often come to us with new and urgent questions: about their safety, their housing, and whether the place they now call home is still safe. Our role is to make sure that whatever the policy landscape looks like, the practical infrastructure of safety, a bed, a door that locks, a support worker who knows a survivor’s history, is there when it is needed.
If this is a moment that resonates with you, whether you are a supporter, or simply someone who has been following the news, we would encourage you to look at the primary sources below rather than relying on secondhand summaries, and to consider how you can support frontline services that carry out this work every day.
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
GOV.UK, Rape, serious child sex and grooming offences barred from sentencing changes
GOV.UK, Sentencing Act offence exclusions
Today’s Family Lawyer, Refuge criticises exclusion of domestic abuse perpetrators from Sentencing Act review
UK Parliament Hansard, Early Release of Prisoners debate
SafeLives, How widespread is domestic abuse and what is the impact?
Femicide Census, Data Matters – Every Woman Matters
Legislation.gov.uk, Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025, explanatory note
