Chapter 40.
“What else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?”
— Sir Thomas More
The Failure of the Penal System
Research shows that investing in earlier preventative support can save more than £3 for every pound spent, with potential public purse savings of up to £12.3 billion if scaled across the country in 2026. This stark financial efficiency stands in sharp contrast to our current penal landscape, which is struggling to meet its most fundamental objectives and ironically perpetuating the very problems it claims to solve. Why? Far from being primary instruments of justice or genuine rehabilitation, prisons appear instead to be a convenient, if costly, place for inconvenient people.
These are individuals, or indeed entire groups, whose actions, circumstances or, crucially, whose dissent, are deemed disruptive to the prevailing social and political order. This is not merely about managing criminal behaviour. It is about managing perceived threats to the status quo. And in doing so, the very nature of our penal systems, often framed as a simple stick and carrot mechanism for crime and punishment, reveals itself, upon closer inspection, to be far more intricate and, at times, deeply paradoxical, often overlooking its own stated aims of public safety and personal transformation.
The Criminalisation of Dissent
This uncomfortable truth is strikingly illuminated by the recent, regressive evolution of UK laws specifically designed to limit civil protest and curtail dissent. Over the past few years, the legislative landscape has shifted dramatically, granting unprecedented powers to the state while simultaneously narrowing the space for legitimate public expression.
In recent years, the legislative landscape has shifted dramatically, granting unprecedented powers to the state while simultaneously narrowing the space for legitimate public expression. A series of laws have fundamentally reshaped the British streets, turning once-tolerated forms of direct action into criminal offences punishable by significant prison terms. One law expanded police powers to impose conditions on protests based on the potential for serious disruption, a term deliberately broadened to encompass even minor inconvenience. It introduced new offences like intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of ten years, a stark departure from previous common law interpretations.
This was then bolstered by subsequent legislation, which further criminalised specific protest tactics, introducing new offences such as locking on, tunnelling, obstructing major transport works and interfering with key national infrastructure. These offences are framed with broad language, allowing for wide interpretation and severe penalties, often up to 12 months in magistrates courts or even three years in Crown Court for tunnelling-related offences. The law introduced Serious Disruption Prevention Orders, essentially protest-banning orders, which can impose intrusive conditions on individuals, even if they have not been convicted of a protest-related offence, based merely on a likelihood of causing disruption.
Human rights organisations have been vocal and unwavering in their condemnation of these legislative changes. They have documented how these laws represent a draconian assault on protest rights, highlighting their impact on peaceful activists receiving unprecedented prison sentences. They argue that the broad and vague definitions within the Acts, particularly concerning serious disruption and recklessness, create a significant chilling effect on public assembly and expression. This fear of disproportionate punishment deters ordinary citizens from participating in demonstrations, even those addressing critical societal issues like climate change or social justice.
Other organisations have consistently campaigned against these laws, asserting that they violate fundamental human rights, particularly freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly. They point to instances where the new powers have been used against peaceful climate protestors or those demonstrating in solidarity with international causes, leading to arrests and convictions that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Another organisation, providing vital ground-level intelligence, has reported extensively on the aggressive application of these new powers. Their analyses frequently highlight instances where police tactics and the legislative framework combine to create an environment of intimidation, suggesting that the systematic curtailment of dissent through legal and state apparatuses is becoming alarmingly commonplace, effectively moving towards a form of state repression rather than mere public order management. For example, recent data from the Home Office revealed that between June 2024 and March 2026, the Metropolitan Police alone applied conditions to 582 protests under the amended Public Order Act 1986 powers, leading to 345 arrests for breaching those conditions, illustrating the heightened proactive control exerted over public demonstrations.
The Irony of Punishment
The irony embedded within this expanding punitive system is the often hidden, structural and deeply human nature of the system’s failure. Consider the compelling case of a climate activist, who scaled a bridge with a fellow protestor, leading to a highly disruptive 40-hour closure. Convicted under the law for intentionally causing a public nuisance, they received a three-year prison sentence, a clear message from the state: disruptive direct action would be met with severe consequences, reinforcing the stick aspect of the penal system.
Yet, within the confines of their prison cell, this individual’s narrative took an unexpected turn, showcasing the enduring power of human agency and the potential for positive contribution even within a punitive environment. While serving their sentence, they channelled their energy into enriching the lives of fellow inmates, forming a prison choir and regularly playing the piano and organ for chapel services. This story stands as a poignant counterpoint to the notion that individuals incarcerated for dissent are simply inconvenient troublemakers, incapable of positive social engagement.
This raises critical questions about what truly constitutes nuisance, the underlying motivations of those who protest and the ultimate aims of a justice system that can condemn individuals to lengthy terms while overlooking their capacity for genuine, un-coerced contribution. It illuminates a critical disconnect: a system designed to punish often stifles potential, while human spirit frequently finds ways to flourish despite the constraints.
The Failure of Short Sentences
Such cases underscore a deeper systemic flaw that extends beyond protest: sentencing itself can often be arbitrary and, crucially, contrary to the very concept of rehabilitation. The latest available statistics for January to March 2026 reveal that adult offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months had a proven reoffending rate of 58.2 per cent. Alarmingly, for those serving sentences of six months or less, this figure rises even higher to 61.3 per cent.
This significant disparity strongly suggests that the disruptive stick of a brief prison term, often insufficient for meaningful rehabilitative intervention, breaks crucial societal ties, such as employment, accommodation and family connections, making successful reintegration difficult and a swift return to criminal behaviour more likely.
The Financial Folly of Incarceration
Beyond the ethical and social failings, the current punitive model carries a colossal and often overlooked financial burden, representing a significant drain on public resources that could otherwise be invested in genuine societal betterment. In England and Wales, the overall average cost for running a prison place for a year was £53,800 in 2025-26. When considering the total expenditure, the Ministry of Justice spent £3.7 billion on prisons in 2025-26 alone, making it the largest single area of expenditure for the department. The government’s commitment to building 20,000 additional prison places by the mid-2020s comes with an approved estimated funding of £5.5 billion.
This considerable expenditure is not merely for accommodation. It also encompasses the broader costs associated with reoffending itself. The total economic and social cost of reoffending in England and Wales is estimated at approximately £18.9 billion per year. This staggering figure includes costs related to detecting, sentencing and re-imprisoning individuals. A significant portion of this, over £9.8 billion, is attributed to the cyclical costs associated with theft, the most common re-offence. The fact that offenders released from short sentences (less than 12 months) contribute an estimated £5.2 billion to these reoffending costs, compared to £1.1 billion for those serving longer sentences (12 months or more), highlights the inefficiency of brief, punitive stints that fail to break cycles of crime.
The Case for Alternatives
Contrast this immense outlay with the demonstrated financial efficacy of alternative, rehabilitative and restorative approaches. Take restorative justice, for example. Analysis in 2026 has shown that providing restorative justice in 80,000 cases involving adult offenders could deliver £210 million in cashable cost savings to the criminal justice system over just two years, primarily through reductions in reoffending. One independent expert analysis of restorative justice for young offenders found that diverting them from community orders to a pre-court restorative justice conferencing scheme could produce a lifetime saving to society of almost £300 million (£7,500 per offender), with the cost of implementing the scheme being recouped within the first year.
Investing in preventative social services and community-based solutions has a strong economic case. It has been reported in 2026 that investing in earlier preventative support can save more than £3 for every pound spent, with potential public purse savings of up to £12.3 billion if scaled across the country. These interventions include physical activity support, social prescribing, housing-related support and community-based care, all elements of a holistic approach that addresses root causes. The average cost of an additional person on a probation caseload (community orders and suspended sentence orders) is approximately £3,200, significantly less than the £53,800 annual cost of a prison place. This stark financial contrast underscores that a future aligned with addressing root causes and investing in communities is not just an ethical imperative but an economic opportunity, potentially unlocking billions of pounds that are currently trapped in a failing, expensive and counterproductive carceral system.
Are Prisons Obsolete?
These critical examinations of the prison system’s efficacy, fairness, human impact and resulting financial drain lead inevitably to a powerful and unsettling question: Are prisons truly serving their purpose, or are they, in fact, obsolete? This is the challenging inquiry that compels us to consider that prisons are not a natural or inevitable part of human society but rather a relatively recent historical construction, inextricably linked to specific systems of social, economic and racial control.
It is contended that the prison industrial complex fundamentally fails in its stated goals of reducing crime and rehabilitating offenders. Instead, it perpetuates cycles of poverty, violence and marginalisation, disproportionately impacting already vulnerable communities.
This shifts the conversation from merely reforming prisons to the far more ambitious, yet vital, task of envisioning a world without them. By exposing their inherent flaws, their historical contingency and the systemic harms they inflict, we are compelled to move beyond incremental adjustments and ask what next. If prisons are indeed obsolete, what could genuinely replace them? This perspective, while radical and often met with initial scepticism, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about our societal reliance on punishment and imagine alternatives rooted in restorative justice, which focuses on repairing harm through dialogue and community-led solutions rather than simply punishing the perpetrator. It also involves addressing root causes of crime by strategically shifting resources from incarceration to investing in fundamental social goods like universal housing, quality education, accessible healthcare, comprehensive mental health services and robust economic justice initiatives. It also involves fostering community-based solutions for accountability and safety that empower local networks to manage conflict and uphold justice without resorting to state-sanctioned confinement.
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Bibliography
Ashworth, A. Sentencing and Criminal Justice. Cambridge University Press. 2010
Davis, A.Y. Are Prisons Obsolete?. Seven Stories Press. 2003
Garland, D. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. OUP Oxford. 2001