Introduction

Criminal justice systems across the world are almost universally in a poor state. There are exceptions and offenders can and do desist from crime; but prisons are often understaffed and overcrowded, thereby negatively affecting prisoner safety and opportunities for rehabilitation. According to Nick Hardwick, former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales (2015: 10), ‘staff shortages, overcrowding and the wider policy changes […] have had a significant impact on prison safety’. Hardwick further stated:

Those incarcerated can also be exposed to high levels of violence and drug use (Kinner and Rich, 2018; McGuire, 2018). Despite the inherent problems with imprisonment, changes in legislative frameworks and sentencing guidance, and a more punitive climate of opinion informed by penal populism and a politics of mass incarceration (in the US in particular) have seemingly led to greater use of custody rather than less (Garland, 2001a; Millie et al., 2003; Pratt, 2007; Hinton, 2016). In the US mass incarceration is also distinctly racial (Wacquant, 2002; Hinton, 2016). And while the number of countries with the death penalty may be shrinking, capital punishment also persists in too many jurisdictions (again, particularly in the US, and again with racial overtones – see for example, Walker et al., 2017). Radical alternatives such as restorative justice programmes (for example, Shapland et al., 2011) or truth and reconciliation commissions (for example, Tutu, 1999) are tried but do not make the inroads into mainstream criminal justice practice that they could.

This is not a new story.