Ouagadougou: The new British government announced on Friday the early release of thousands of prisoners, to relieve pressure on prisons on the verge of asphyxiation.Barely a week after coming to power, Labor is forced to act in the face of this crisis in prisons which could no longer have places available in the weeks to come.Prisons have been regularly filled to 99% of their capacity since the start of 2023 and on July 8 there were only around 700 free places for men, out of a total of around 84,000.'Our prisons are on the verge of collapse,' declared the new Minister of Justice Shabana Mahmood, announcing this emergency action plan.'If we do not act now, we risk the collapse of the criminal justice system and disruption of public order,' she added, from HMP Five Wells prison in central England. .'Criminals could do whatever they want without consequence. We could see looters going on a rampage, breaking windows, robbing stores and setting neighborhoods on fire,' the minister continued.Chief Insp ector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said the situation was 'at absolute breaking point'.According to the government, there could be no more places available in prison 'within a few weeks'.Prisons have been regularly filled to 99% of their capacity since the start of 2023.There are currently 83,755 male prisoners for 84,463 places, according to figures published by the Ministry of Justice.Among the measures announced, prisoners eligible for early release under judicial supervision after having completed half of their sentence will now be able to benefit from it earlier, when they have completed 40% of their sentence.People sentenced to more than 4 years of detention, as well as those incarcerated for sexual offenses, are excluded from this system.The new measures announced on Friday will not come into force until September, in order to give the prison services time to organize these early releases.New Prime Minister Keir Starmer has blamed previous Conservative governments for the situation.'This i s blatant irresponsibility on the part of the outgoing government,' he accused from Washington where he participated in a NATO summit in recent days.'We knew there was going to be a problem, but the extent of it is worse than we thought,' he added.Source: Burkina Information Agency