This post was contributed by Dr Laura Lammasniemi, Module Convenor for Criminal law.
What is punishment for?
That deceptively simple question sits at the heart of every criminal justice reform. Is punishment about retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, or protecting the public? In England and Wales, that balance has become increasingly fragile. Prisons are dangerously overcrowded, probation services are overstretched, and confidence in community sentences remains low. There are increasing calls to say prison simply is not working, for women in particular.
Against this backdrop, the Sentencing Bill 2025 represents the government’s latest attempt to restore order to a system on the brink. The Bill promises to make prison smarter, community punishments ‘tougher’, and sentencing more flexible. While the rhetoric emphasises ‘toughness’, the Bill in fact expands community sentencing and formalises early release. But does it offer genuine reform or just a temporary fix for a broken system?
The starting point for many of the Bill’s proposals is a review led by former Justice Secretary David Gauke, commissioned to investigate “crisis in prison capacity”. The Sentencing Bill 2025 now implements some of the recommendations of the review but with significant qualifications and modifications.
The Bill’s reforms fall broadly into two areas: changes to prison sentencing and the modernisation of community punishments. In essence, it acknowledges what successive governments have known for years: we cannot build our way out of a prison crisis. Instead, it seeks to change how and when custody is used.
One of the Bill’s most publicised reforms is the “earned progression model,” recommended by the Gauke review, and inspired by a system used in Texas. Under this scheme, prisoners serving standard determinate sentences may be released earlier – for most, after a third of their term – if they demonstrate sustained good behaviour. Those convicted of the most serious violent or terrorism offences will be excluded.
Early release will be complemented by expanded electronic tagging to monitor offenders in the community and greater use of curfews, driving bans, and new ‘restriction zones’ requiring offenders to stay within a specified geographical area.
Earlier drafts of the idea proposed that prison officers would decide who qualified for early release. This risked bias and inconsistency. The final version instead requires judges to authorise additional “extra days” for misconduct, doubling the penalties that can be imposed but keeping discretion within the judicial system rather than the prison estate.
The scheme is intended to incentivise rehabilitation and reduce overcrowding, but questions remain. Will it genuinely motivate change or simply formalise early release? And why are children excluded from the opportunity to benefit, meaning they could spend longer in custody than adults for equivalent offences? That exclusion sits uneasily with principles of youth justice and proportionality.
The Bill also makes a more promising move to abolish most short prison sentences of less than twelve months, except in exceptional circumstances. The message is clear: custody should not be the default. And for good reasons. Ministry of Justice data show that 62% of people released after serving less than a year go on to reoffend within twelve months. Evidence also shows that community orders and suspended sentence orders can more effectively reduce reoffending when compared to short custodial sentences.
Short custodial sentences impact women in particular, and even the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood believes “prison isn’t working” for women. Most women in prison serve sentences of less than a year, often for non-violent offences linked to poverty, trauma, or coercive relationships. Even a few weeks in custody can lead to the loss of housing, employment, and in some cases, child custody. As women’s prisons are few and far between, women in custody are often held far from family support networks, making both isolation and return to community harder.
Stepping back, the Sentencing Bill 2025 is in many ways less a moral manifesto than a managerial solution to a crisis. It asks how to make punishment work better, rather than offering a radical re-think of why we punish or rely on custody to do so.
In theory, the Bill balances retribution and rehabilitation: prisoners are rewarded for reform; communities see visible accountability. In practice, however, its success depends on whether offenders are given real opportunities to change material circumstances of their lives: stable housing, education, and support rather than simply incentives to comply with.
From a critical perspective, these measures are merely “tinkering at the edges.” They make punishment more efficient without questioning its underlying logic. Howard League for Prison Reform argues that jails that are overcrowded and unsafe will never help people to turn their lives around. If custodial sentences reproduce inequality and harm, as prison abolitionists argue, then making it more flexible or efficient does not make it more just or reduce crime.
What then are the long-term solutions?
Post your thoughts in the comments.
Further reading:
- Gillian McNaull (2019), The problem with women’s prisons – and why they do more harm than good.
- Chamberlen, A (2018) Embodying Punishment: Emotions, Identities and Lived Experiences in Women’s Prisons, Clarendon Studies in Criminology Series, Oxford University Press