Many people have heard the aphorism, often erroneously attributed to the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, that “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”[54] Britain’s prison system, therefore, is an illustrative proxy for the health of society as a whole – and the picture is not pretty. The Institute for Government recently found that “the prison system in England and Wales is in an extremely poor state,” plagued by overcrowding, violence, drug abuse, understaffing, and crumbling infrastructure.[55]

These conditions have been exacerbated by inadequate funding and a large increase in the number of people incarcerated over the last several decades. In 1971, the prison population in England and Wales was 107 per 100,000 people over the age of 15.[56] By 2021, this had risen to 159 (a 48.6% increase). In Scotland, the numbers were 138 in 1971 and 162 in 2021 (a 17.4% increase).

Such systems of mass incarceration result in tremendous social and economic costs as entire communities are often caught up in multigenerational cycles of family separation, crime, trauma, and imprisonment.