Reading Angela Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete? Inspired me to learn more about the prison systems in the UK. I am a prison abolitionist, but am aware most of my knowledge of prison systems comes from US-focused media. I know, both from reading the book and my perspective as a marginalized person, that figures alone can obscure the reality of each individual’s experience, but I hope this extract helps others who don’t think the system in the UK is as grim as in other countries. We exported this system around the world, and we have pioneered a system that hurts the most vulnerable and marginalized amongst us in Britain, too.
I learnt after reading this book that low paid and forced labour is also done in the UK, which I was surprised by; people don’t talk about the prison industrial complex as much in the UK, despite the burgeoning presence of privatization. If imprisoned people refuse to work they’re punished, having visits, time outside their cell and outside in a courtyard curtailed, as well as having other things taken away. Prison labour is used to break strikes, as they are a captive labour force. The work pays at minimum £4 an hour, below the minimum wage, and as stated it is difficult to refuse. Taking part in education pays but pays less than working, so most qualifications are earned despite conditions in prison rather than because of it. People with drug problems and other complex needs are excluded from prison work or only allowed to do the most basic kinds, meaning they are more segregated – working allows more socialization – and poorer.
45% of adults in prison in the UK have anxiety or depression, 8% have a diagnosis of psychosis, and 60% have experienced a traumatic brain injury. This to me is staggering also; I knew that prisons criminalize the poor, but I hadn’t considered fully how much it further marginalizes disabled people.
Another thing I didn’t know we had here is the remand system, holding people in prison before their trial happens. I also didn’t know that although bail is free here, if you haven’t previously met the conditions of bail, are considered a flight risk or are being tried for a serious incident you can be held before you are charged. More than 3,600 people have been held in prison awaiting trial for more than six months. This amounts to almost a third of everyone under remand, as of December 2020. Over 3,000 had been held for longer than six months, and over 2,000 for more than eight months. In January 2021, one out of every seven people in prison haven’t yet been convicted, and were waiting for trial. People of colour have consistently made up at least 20% of those remanded since records have begun. According to the sources I read, people often plead guilty just to get out of limbo, another phenomenon I had only heard of in the US.
Nearly three quarters of people under 18 and nearly half of all adults are reconvicted within a year of leaving prison. The cost per prisoner per year is £48,409, more than the cost of a year at Eton College, one of the UK’s most prestigious private schools. 15% of new prisoners also reported being homeless before being in prison, with 9% sleeping on the streets. 27% of the adult prison population has at one point been under state care. Nearly 40% of prisoners under 21 were in state care as children. 72% of men and 70% of women sentenced have two or more mental health conditions diagnoses. Over half of the women’s prison population has suffered domestic violence and a third have experienced sexual abuse. Over a quarter of the UK prison population is from a minority ethnic group.
I know I’m partially surprised by these figures because the state does its best to obscure the realities of prison life and constituency. This research has made the cause of prison abolition more prescient and urgent, in my eyes, in the UK.
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