Ministry of Justice guidance now presumes eligible male prisoners move to open conditions up to three years before release, and governors can refuse only if the risk is 'wholly unacceptable.' Nobody outside government can see how many prisoners that presumption has actually moved.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
In short. Ministry of Justice guidance updated this week tells prison governors that eligible Category C prisoners in the adult male estate should be re-categorised to open, Category D conditions up to 36 months before their release date, "unless that re-categorisation would represent a wholly unacceptable risk" [2]. The same guidance bars the prison receiving that prisoner from applying "additional local criteria or restrictions" of its own [2], even though it also names the Governor or Director as "the decision maker" [2]. The Ministry's own Security Categorisation Policy Framework, which this scheme's mandatory pre-transfer check is drawn from, defines categorisation itself as "a risk assessment process," not a default with a narrow override [3]. Victim notification depends on a separate scheme open only to victims of "specified violent or sexual crimes where the offender is sentenced to 12 months or more" [2], narrower than the offences the presumption itself screens out. And a scheme first launched as a 24-month version, replaced by this 36-month one in June 2025 and widened again this year, is still, in its own words, "designed to be temporary, pending more substantive changes" [2], with no end date, no published target and no public figures anywhere on GOV.UK for how many prisoners it has moved. Three documented mistakes: four stars.
A Category C prisoner with 18 months left to serve does not, under this guidance, need anyone to actively decide they are ready for open conditions. The decision has already been made for them. His prison is sent his name on a pre-populated tracker, checks him against a fixed list of exclusions, and moves him to Category D unless a governor can point to a specific, listed reason not to. That is the operating model set out in the Temporary Presumptive Re-categorisation Scheme guidance, known as TPRS36, first published 6 August 2026 and updated again on 23 September 2026 [1].
A presumption, not an assessment
The guidance is explicit about what changed. "There will be a presumption in such cases that re-categorisation to category D is appropriate," it states, before adding that "Governors/Directors will be the decision maker but will have only limited discretion, in exceptional circumstances, to reject TPRS re-categorisation" [2]. The bar for that rejection is high: a "wholly unacceptable risk," illustrated by examples such as a credible abscond threat, a history of breaching temporary release conditions, or MAPPA level 2/3 management [2]. Security departments, the guidance adds, "do not have the authority to 'screen out' those eligible for TPRS" [2]. And once a prisoner clears the national criteria, the receiving prison cannot add its own: "receiving establishments must not impose additional local criteria or restrictions that would prevent, delay or otherwise hinder progression to open conditions. Decisions regarding suitability for TPRS36 must be based solely on the eligibility criteria, exclusions and wholly unacceptable risk considerations contained within this guidance" [2].
That sits uneasily next to what the department's own categorisation policy says the process is for. The Security Categorisation Policy Framework, still live on GOV.UK and the framework TPRS36's mandatory pre-transfer check is drawn from at paragraph 4.9.16, opens with a single-sentence definition: "Security categorisation is a risk assessment process the purpose of which is to ensure that those sentenced to custody are assigned the lowest security category appropriate to managing the risks they present both to the community and in custody" [3]. An assessment, by definition, can conclude either way. TPRS36 sets the conclusion first and treats a governor's contrary judgement as the exception, one that must be "clearly recorded on NOMIS" precisely because it departs from the default [2].
The victims who might not hear
The guidance does include a victim liaison section. Staff must check whether a prisoner's victims are enrolled in the Victim Contact Scheme (VCS) and notify them at each stage of a TPRS36 move [2]. But the guidance itself defines who that covers: "The VCS is open to victims of specified violent or sexual crimes where the offender is sentenced to 12 months or more" [2], and even then, only victims who "have chosen to participate" [2] get told anything at all. TPRS36's own exclusion list, by contrast, only screens out violent offences carrying four years or more, sexual offences, and a specific list of domestic abuse-related offences [2]. A prisoner serving a shorter violent sentence that falls under the VCS's own 12-month-and-specified-offence threshold, or whose victim never opted in, is eligible for presumptive early transfer to open conditions with no notification mechanism in this guidance at all.
Temporary since 2025, still open-ended
TPRS36 is itself a revision. "With effect from 09/06/2025 TPRS24 is discontinued and replaced with TPRS36," the guidance's change log records, extending the pre-release window prisoners can be moved under the scheme from 24 months to 36 [2]. Version 2.0, dated August 2026, widened eligibility further, changing "SDS40 Eligibiliity requirement... to SDS33/40" and adding new offence exclusions [2]. Through all of that, the guidance's own framing has not changed: "The scheme is designed to be temporary, pending more substantive changes to re-categorisation policy. A further instruction will be issued when the scheme is discontinued" [2]. No date, no population target, no capacity threshold is attached to that sentence, fifteen months and two revisions after it was first written.
The context is the Ministry's own. Useable operational capacity across the prison estate stood at 89,334 as of 24 November 2025, and the department's own projections put the population on course to reach between 98,000 and 103,600 by March 2030, a central estimate of 100,600 [4]. The most recent quarterly statistics attribute recent population movements in part to "the continued impact of early release schemes, such as SDS40" [5], the same sentencing change TPRS36's own change log ties its eligibility rules to. HM Prison and Probation Service reported gross resource expenditure of £5.9 billion in 2024 to 2025, plus £1.0 billion of capital spend [6]: population management at this scale is not a marginal administrative choice.
What is missing is any public account of what TPRS36 itself has done. The guidance says a "Power BI Dashboard" tracks the status of every case processed under the scheme [2], but that dashboard is internal. A site-wide GOV.UK search for the phrase "presumptive re-categorisation" returns exactly one result: the guidance document itself [7]. No statistical release, no offender management bulletin, no parliamentary answer indexed by that search names a single figure for how many Category C prisoners have been moved to open conditions under TPRS24 or TPRS36 since June 2025.
The claims, tested
| The guidance's own words | What the same or related documents show | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Governors have "only limited discretion, in exceptional circumstances, to reject TPRS re-categorisation" [2] | The framework this guidance's own pre-transfer check is drawn from defines categorisation as "a risk assessment process" [3] | The department's own definition of the process and this guidance's application of it point in opposite directions |
| Victims are notified if enrolled in the VCS, open to victims of offences "sentenced to 12 months or more" [2] | TPRS36's own exclusion list only screens out violent offences of four years or more, sexual offences and specified domestic abuse offences [2] | A real gap exists between who is eligible for early transfer and who is guaranteed to be told about it |
| "The scheme is designed to be temporary, pending more substantive changes" [2] | Running since June 2025, widened twice, with no public figures on how many prisoners have moved through it [7] | "Temporary" with no end condition attached is doing no descriptive work |
The mistakes, counted
The presumption contradicts the department's own definition of what categorisation is for, and strips the named decision maker of the discretion the guidance says they hold (1). The Security Categorisation Policy Framework calls categorisation a risk assessment; TPRS36 sets the outcome first and bars receiving prisons from adding local judgement.
Victim notification depends on an opt-in scheme narrower than the scheme's own exclusion list (2). A victim of an offence below the VCS's 12-month-and-specified-offence threshold, or who never enrolled, gets no notice before an offender moves toward open conditions and eventual release.
A scheme called "temporary" for fifteen months, and widened twice, has no end date, no published target and no public usage figures (3). The only GOV.UK reference to it anywhere is the guidance document itself, despite an internal dashboard that the guidance says already tracks every case.
Credit where due
The exclusion list itself is substantive, not a formality. It rules out anyone serving four years or more for a violent offence, any sexual offence or one carrying sex offenders' register notification, a specific list of domestic abuse-related offences including coercive control and intentional strangulation or suffocation, stalking of any sentence length, anyone on recall or remand, anyone referred to police for a violent offence in custody pending a decision, and anyone with "substantive and credible" adverse security intelligence [2]. A mandatory check, independent of the original assessment, must be completed no more than seven days before the actual transfer, looking again at case notes, intelligence and outstanding adjudications [2]. Where a prisoner is managed at MAPPA level 2 or 3, the Probation Service's Community Offender Manager must be consulted before any move [2]. And sign-off sits no lower than Band 7 or Head of Function, recorded on the digital categorisation service, creating an audit trail for every decision made under the scheme [2].
Verdict
Four stars, from three documented mistakes. The exclusion list is real, the pre-transfer check is real, and the sign-off trail is real. What does not survive contact with the department's own paperwork is the framing: a "risk assessment" that the department's own guidance now runs as a presumption, a victim notification promise that only covers a narrower band of offences than the scheme itself screens for, and a "temporary" measure that has outlived two of its own version numbers with nothing published anywhere to show what it has actually done.
Sources
- GOV.UK, "Temporary Presumptive Re-categorisation Scheme guidance" (Ministry of Justice / HM Prison and Probation Service, first published 6 August 2026, updated 23 September 2026, checked 24 September 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/temporary-presumptive-re-categorisation-scheme-guidance
- Ministry of Justice / HMPPS, "TPRS36 Operational Guidance, V2.0" (PDF, August 2026, checked 24 September 2026). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6ab3b2eda9c3d267bccced78/tprs36-operational-guidance.pdf
- GOV.UK, "Security categorisation policy framework" (Ministry of Justice / HMPPS, first published 20 February 2020, updated 28 April 2025, checked 24 September 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/security-categorisation-policy-framework
- GOV.UK, "Prison Population Projections: 2025 to 2030" (Ministry of Justice official statistics, published 4 December 2025, checked 24 September 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-projections-2025-to-2030/prison-population-projections-2025-to-2030--2
- GOV.UK, "Offender management statistics quarterly: January to March 2026" (Ministry of Justice official statistics, checked 24 September 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2026/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2026
- HM Prison and Probation Service, "HMPPS Annual Report and Accounts 2024 to 2025" (PDF, checked 24 September 2026). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6925c7af47904590c9da2d1d/35.4_HMPPS_ARA_2024-25_v9.3_WEB.pdf
- GOV.UK, site-wide search for "presumptive re-categorisation," sorted by newest (checked 24 September 2026). https://www.gov.uk/search/all?keywords=%22presumptive+re-categorisation%22&order=updated-newest