The government’s Sentencing Bill, currently progressing through Parliament, proposes reducing prison sentences for “good behaviour.” On the surface, this sounds like a progressive reform, rewarding rehabilitation and incentivising positive conduct. In reality, without rigorous safeguards, training, and oversight, it risks embedding corruption, inequality, and arbitrariness deep into the prison system. Under the proposals, offender managers…
The Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme was introduced to encourage “good behaviour” in prisons. But in practice, “good behaviour” is a vague, patronising and fundamentally subjective concept, one that gives frontline staff enormous discretionary power. What counts as “good” too often depends not on clear rules, but on the personal attitudes, frustrations or prejudices…
Science increasingly shows that hope is one of the most powerful emotions we possess. It shapes wellbeing, strengthens resilience, and buffers the long-term effects of trauma. But new research raises a crucial question: what if a traumatised brain can no longer access hope at all? Groundbreaking studies at Yale University reveal that PTSD alters the…
The launch of the Women’s Justice Board on 21 January 2025 marks a significant moment in rethinking how the UK treats women in the criminal justice system. Campaigners have stressed that women’s offending is often rooted in trauma, domestic abuse, poverty and addiction. Prisons rarely address these issues and often deepen the harm. Chaired by…
A new IMB (Independent Monitoring Board) report on HMP/YOI Bronzefield, published on 10 December 2025, reveals a devastating reality: women in acute mental distress are still being sent to prison because secure psychiatric beds simply don’t exist. Despite warnings in the 2023 IMB thematic report, Bronzefield’s 2024-25 annual review shows that almost nothing has changed,…
What can a metamorphosing beetle and a kidnapped art student teach us about the lived experience of incarceration? In this powerful literary essay, El Jamieson explores how two classic works – Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and John Fowles’ The Collector – reveal uncomfortable truths about isolation, gender, and the dehumanising nature of imprisonment. At first…
Release on temporary licence (RoTL) for women in prison is supposed to be part of their resettlement and rehabilitation. They can access resettlement leave to maintain contact with their children, especially their young children. In addition, women are allowed to apply for a special purpose licence (SPL) to leave prison to attend urgent medical appointments. …
Prison is meant to take away freedom, not life itself. Yet for many women behind bars in Britain, a cancer diagnosis becomes a slow and silent execution. Prison Shouldn’t Be a Death Sentence: Cancer and Cruelty Behind Bars exposes the devastating reality of medical neglect faced by incarcerated women living with cancer. Through the harrowing…
Important announcement on the View Magazine The View Magazine's editorial board has decided to dissolve the limited company and CIC, which was guaranteed by shares and registered as a Community Interest Company with Companies House in England and Wales. The CIC regulator claims to have received complaints about the campaigning activities of the View Magazine…
HMP & YOI Eastwood Park, the women’s prison in Gloucestershire, is once again under the spotlight, and for all the wrong reasons. An unannounced inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) from 17 June to 3 July 2025, published on 22 September 2025, reveals a distressing environment of self-harm, violence, and despair. Although Chief…