Freed prisoners are committing a record number of serious offences including murder and rape, the chief inspector of probation has warned.

Almost 900 serious crimes have been committed in the past year by offenders under the supervision of probation.

It is the highest number since records began and accounts for at least one murder and two rapes every week.

The new figures come a day after police chiefs warned that Labour’s soft sentence reforms will result in a crimewave pushing some forces to the brink of bankruptcy.

The estimated bill for having to deal with thousands more criminals on the streets under the Government’s plan to ditch shorter prison sentences and release inmates earlier has spiralled from initial estimates of £400million in extra policing costs to £800million.

Yesterday Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, claimed public safety is already being put at risk because probation officers are missing the risk posed by offenders supervised in the community following their release from prison or serving community sentences.

He is so concerned by the surge in further offences that he has ordered a six-month nationwide inspection of probation's management of dangerous criminals.

Official data shows there were 872 notifications of serious further offences by criminals released from jail or serving community sentences in 2024-25, up by 13 per cent from the 770 in the previous year and 51 per cent up on the 577 in 2022-23.

The crimes committed by released prisoners include murder, rape, attempted murder, manslaughter, sexual assaults, arson and kidnapping.

Martin Jones became His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Probation in March 2024 after nine years as Chief Executive of the Parole Board.

The notifications for 2023-24 resulted in 357 convictions for serious further offences including 56 murders - equivalent to one a week - and 107 rapes, equivalent to two a week.

A breakdown of the data shows the number of rapes perpetrated by offenders under probation supervision has rocketed by 39 per cent from 77 in 2021-22 to 107 in 2023-4.

Over the last year tens of thousands of offenders have been released early due to the overcrowding crisis in jails.

But the watchdog says the public is being let down due to an acute shortage of front-line probation officers and a breakdown in information-sharing between probation, police and social services.

Mr Jones said he was ‘increasingly concerned that probation is falling short in its duty to protect the public’.

‘These gaps mean that hard pressed probation staff are sometimes lacking critical information on the dynamic risk people on probation may pose,’ he told the Telegraph.

He said every front-line probation delivery unit he inspected were ‘inadequate’ or ‘requiring improvement’.