Can a focus on reducing the UK’s prison population benefit public health?

An independent sentencing review commissioned by the UK government has proposed radical reforms to reduce the prison population.1 The review was ordered last October by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, in response to a prison system so overcrowded that prisoners were released early in emergency measures designed to avoid complete collapse.2

Plans to expand the use of so called “chemical castration” have dominated the headlines, but the review also includes sweeping proposals to reduce the prison population, with recommendations to dramatically cut the use of sentences of less than a year, as well as suggestions for more alternatives to custody—particularly for women, older people, and those experiencing poor mental health.

The government has accepted most of the recommendations, and Mahmood said that the reforms would “ensure that we never again run out of prison places for dangerous offenders.”3