Comment: How the UK's sentencing measures are failing offenders and society
Comment piece by Dr Nicola Mallowan, senior lecturer at BNU and a Chartered Psychologist. Nicola is an Associate Fellow with the British Psychological Society and is the Continuous Personal Development Lead for the BPS Division of Forensic Psychology committee. As a practitioner, Nicola previously worked for the National Probation Substance Misuse Team and undertakes research on substance misuse, prisonisation, working with exploited groups, racial biases in the CJS, knife crime, and public perception of crime.
Prison is traditionally seen as a means to punish, deter, and protect society from those who break the law. However, an examination of the current prison system reveals that these goals are not being achieved effectively. Instead, prisons often exacerbate problems for offenders, their families, and society. This is set against a background of England and Wales having the highest prison population in Western Europe, which is projected to continue increasing in the coming years, with the Ministry of Justice announcing recently that it plans to build four new prisons within the next decade. In the 2022/23 fiscal year, the average cost per prison place was £51,724 per year, with a total liability to the taxpayer for maintaining the prison system in 2023/24 of £6.85 billion. In the HM Inspectorate of Prisons Annual Report 2023/24, they concluded that prisons are overcrowded and understaffed, lack purposeful activity, and increase negative behaviours, and highlight the need for urgent improvements. The total reoffending rate within 12 months of prison release in 2022 stood at just over 26%.
The idea of punishment, often touted as a central purpose of imprisonment, is flawed when applied to those who are already disadvantaged. Many of those who end up in prison have imported trauma because they have already faced a life marked by prolonged ‘punishment’, in the form of abuse, harm and neglect. The experience of prison does little to "teach them a lesson", in the way society intends. For many, it only serves to reinforce and perpetuate destructive patterns of behaviour learned over the years, as survival mechanisms. Rather than deterring crime, prison then deepens the cycle of harm.
The idea of protecting the public through imprisonment fails when considering that only those who pose a serious and sustained threat should be deprived of their liberty. The vast majority of those in UK prisons do not fall into this category (particularly exemplified in the female prison population). Instead, subjected to environments that worsen mental and emotional well-being, this often increases the likelihood of reoffending upon release, hence having the opposite effect on protecting the public; thus, more victims are created.
In fact, imprisonment has numerous unintended effects that harm the prisoner, both during their time in prison and after their release. Many experience what has been described as the 'destructive effects' of imprisonment, which include a damaged relationship with authority, social alienation, and a loss of identity. Prisons are often breeding grounds for conflict, where inmates are forced to adapt to an environment filled with trickery, threats, and violence. This can lead to significant personality changes, making it difficult, if not impossible, for individuals to reintegrate into society once they are released.
Short term sentences have a detrimental impact on people’s lives. The unintended consequences of imprisonment are the breakdown of relationships, children being taken into care, loss of homes, employment, social prescribing, support and/or treatment inventions, stigmatisation, marginalisation, shame and embarrassment. Utilising sentences under 12 months perpetuates a transient prison population, with no time to undertake any real and beneficial rehabilitative work whilst inside.
Conversely, the longer an individual spends in prison, the more likely their personality will be altered in ways that make reintegration impossible. Evidence suggests that long sentences, are linked with increased psychological damage, which further hampers the individual’s ability to lead a successful life post-prison. Unfortunately, the current trend in the UK shows a rise in the length of custodial sentences, with the prison population nearly doubling since the 1990s. The average custodial sentence for all offences has risen dramatically over the last few decades, with the average length in 2022 standing at 22.6 months, compared to just 11.4 months in 2000. Moreover, the number of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences (where they can only be released once they prove they are no longer a risk) exacerbates the problem of elongated imprisonment.
The impact of prolonged imprisonment on mental health cannot be overstated. Reports show that self-harm incidents in UK prisons have reached record highs, with over 61,000 incidents recorded between 2018 and 2019—a 16% increase from the previous year. Prisoners are at an elevated risk of self-inflicted death, with the rate being 18 times higher than that of the general population. The most dangerous times for prisoners, being at the beginning and end of their sentences, when emotional disruption is at its peak. These periods are marked by the stress of adapting to a drastically restricted environment and, later, the anxiety of reintegration into society. Something of great importance when considering giving out short sentences.
Evidence points to the fact that the current system is not working in terms of rehabilitation. If it were, it would be expected to see a declining prison population, not a continuously rising one. The cost of a system that fails to rehabilitate is significant—both in human terms and financially. The UK’s underfunded and understaffed criminal justice system is contributing to the mental health crises within prisons, which ultimately costs more in the long run. Little can be done to effectively rehabilitate prisoners whilst inside, thus consequently compromising the safety of both prisoners, prison-leavers and society collectively.
The situation for women in prison is even more dire. Women are more at risk of receiving short prison sentences, for more menial offences, more often note related to ‘protecting the public’, than their male counterparts. Often imprisoned far from home, it makes it difficult to maintain family ties and receive visits. This distance exacerbates the social problems they face and can hinder their reintegration into society upon release. Many women in prison have children, and the effects on children are profound: a significant proportion of these children will end up in care, along with increased risk of experiencing features of poverty, reduced mental health and well-being, lack of supervision, poor educational outcomes and stigma; serving to heighten their own risk of becoming involved in the criminal justice system at a later stage. This simply serves to perpetuate a cycle of disadvantage and criminality within a very specific group.
In light of these issues, the CJS must be reconsidered. Rather than focusing on punishment, rehabilitation and care must be prioritised. There is mounting evidence, particularly coming from Scandinavian countries, that compassionate and rehabilitative approaches lead to better outcomes for offenders, victims, communities and society. The continuation of a system that focuses on locking people up, runs the risk of not only worsening the problems faced by prison-leavers, but also exacerbates social inequality and puts future generations at risk. The creation of a safer and more just society, requires the criminal justice system to make a transformative shift towards a focus on healing and rehabilitation, rather than one that perpetuates harm.
David Adlington-Rivers, Associate Lecturer in Forensic Psychology and Hope and Resilience at BNU, spoke on potential alternative solutions to imprisonment in closed conditions for those deemed to be at low risk of harm to the public, suggesting a "Use of community sentences with control measures such as home detention curfews (HDC), electronic tagging and compulsory treatment orders (CTOs), and the introduction of interventions that increase protective factors, and lower risk further. This balances the risk of harm against the potential for rehabilitation.
"For those at a higher risk of harm to the public, there should be greater opportunities for those prisoners to reduce their risk of harm to the public, and to prove that they can rehabilitate themselves, again using interventions such as mental health support, and other programmes designed to increase protective factors (such as hope). A new category of prison can be created that is specifically targeted at prisoners who are preparing for release that focuses on developing agentic thinking, and providing the skills, mental resources, and confidence to reintegrate successfully into the community. “
Further to David’s comments, the best outcome for victims of crime and society are preventative measures which can be achieved by reducing reoffending and providing the best possible interventions and opportunities for people serving a community and custodial sentence. This allows lasting transformations based on understanding and utilising the full potential of people who have committed crime. This will make our society a safer place to live for all.