Sadiq Khan has sparked outrage by suggesting that prisoners should be able to jump the queue for housing, in order to prevent them reoffending.
The Mayor of London said that irrespective “a big shortage of housing in London”, some prisoners ought to “jump in the queue to get housing to avoid them reoffending again.”
This comes as the Labour government released 1750 prisoners early on Tuesday, as part of an early release scheme.
Under the scheme, convicts are allowed out after just 40 percent of their sentence.
The comments from the capital’s mayor come with the city in a housing crisis, as homelessness spirals; one in fifty Londonders are homeless.
Speaking at The Times’s Crime and Justice Commission, Mr Khan said: “For us the big challenge is there is no housing in London, a big shortage of housing in London.”