The head of the probation watchdog has said people should not be sent back to prison for minor probation infringements, citing this as a reason for the current prison overcrowding crisis.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, said the government needed to take steps to avoid prisons ‘full of people that have simply broken rules that are not really about significant risk’. He said many people who were released early as part of Labour’s bid to ease the capacity crisis had already been recalled weeks later.

Data from the Ministry of Justice shows that most people are recalled to prison for breaching license conditions, not because they have been charged with another criminal offence. Jones said this was often caused by the probation service and other support services being overstretched and unable to provide proper support, and issues around homelessness or drugs and alcohol.

Earlier this year Martin Jones urged ministers to reduce the caseload of the probation service by up to 40,000 offenders. The watchdog warns that 97% of probation units are failing to meet the standards for good practice, with this attributed to the ‘unmanageable’ caseload of the staff.

Speaking to the FT this week, he said following a failed attempt to privatise the service from 2015, a significant number of experienced probation officers left the service, adding: ‘Significant organisational change is traumatic . . . It affects the morale of the organisation and it affects your retention rates.’