Leon Lear wants to go back to prison after being released early (Image: Sky News)
An fighting homelessness has spoken on how he wants to go back to prison after being
Leon Lear, spoke to , whilst sitting next to the remnants of his failed fire on the edge of a playground in , South Wales, wearing two stolen t-shirts.
The 43-year-old, whose damp sleeping was slung over some nearby railings, said: “Last night I was thinking of smashing a window or acting drunk, just to go to the police station to get a hot meal on the blanket to stay somewhere safe. I’d rather be in jail than live like this much longer.”
He added: “I don’t even have underwear.
“I know it’s embarrassing, but this is how I got to live.”
Leon was part of the 1,750 prisoners released early from jail, something called “risky” whilst adding greater strain on already stretched probation services.”
He was jailed for affray in June this year, released five weeks early but homeless in July. He was recalled on breach of licence for shoplifting in September and released again two weeks ago
“Because I was released five weeks early, the probation, and housing didn’t have an inkling I was going to be released. They told me that I’d be on a waiting list for housing. So, since then, I’ve been living on the streets”, said Leon.
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He is one of 13 percent of prisoners in England and Wales who are released without a home.
HMP Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor warned: “Unless we make sure that people are kept in decent conditions and that they’re doing the work they need to do in order to go out and be successful when they leave prison, then the danger is we end up, as we see in so many cases, that prisoners are simply a revolving door; untreated mental health problems, untreated drug users, people with nowhere to live when they come out, and that just creates more victims of crime, more mayhem in communities and a prison population that is now almost unmanageable.
“If people are coming out, they’re not properly prepared, and they’re homeless, then what we’ll see is the danger that they’ll commit more offences, or that they breach their bail conditions, in which case they’ll end up back inside again.”
The early release scheme has prompted widespread fury (Image: Jeff Moore/PA Wire)