In this episode, George Miller talks to the author of What are Prisons for?, prison inspector and visiting professor of law at Oxford Hindpal Singh Bhui, about why we lock so many people up.

Prison populations have increased hugely in the past fifty years and vast sums of money are spent to keep over 11.5 million people behind bars, so you might think there is overwhelming evidence that prison ‘works’.

However, hard evidence for this claim is lacking. ‘If we are to understand more about the purpose of prisons,’ Hindpal Singh Bhui argues, ‘we need to look much further and deeper than official statements and dominant narratives.’

Dr Hindpal Singh Bhui OBE is an Inspection Team Leader at HM Inspectorate of Prisons and a Visiting Law Professor at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford.

The full transcript of the podcast is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2024/04/10/podcast-should-we-be-aiming-to-improve-prisons-or-abolish-them/

Timestamps:

1:50 - What was your earliest impressions of prisons?

4:34 - What is your current role?

5:51 - What are prisons for day in and day out? 

11:43 - Who gets sent to prison and why they get sent to prison?

16:15 - Do you think that the abolitionist position helps take the debate forward? 

20:12 - How do you begin to have a mature debate about change?

24:36 - Are prisons a sort of epiphenomenon on top of deeper, wider social problems?

27:28 - Were there any things that you discovered where you came upon something surprising or enlightening?

30:10 - What is an example that you think is inspiring or points in a positive direction?

Intro music:

Cold by yoitrax | @yoitrax

Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com

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