The Oxford Martin Programme on Decarceration

FUNDING

The Oxford Martin School

PROJECT DATES

October 2025 - September 2028

TEAM

Rachel Condry
Tom Douglas
Seena Fazel
Howard Ryland
Alex Sutherland
Apostolos Tsiachristas
Rongqin Yu

THE PROGRAMME

Over 11 million people are imprisoned worldwide, with incarceration rates continuing to rise. In England and Wales, more than half of prisons are operating over capacity, and projections suggest prisoner numbers could reach over 100,000 by 2029.

While prison is widely used to manage crime, research shows it often fails to reduce reoffending and can cause significant harms, including poor health, economic costs, and negative impacts on families and communities.

The Oxford Martin Programme on Decarceration seeks safer, fairer and more effective alternatives to imprisonment. With incarceration rates at record highs worldwide, including overcrowded prisons in England and Wales, the programme will bring together experts in psychiatry, criminology, law, economics and philosophy. Its aim is to evaluate alternatives such as community sentences, improve decision-making tools, and build evidence to guide sentencing policy. By working with policymakers and people with lived experience of the prison system, it will help shape approaches to justice that enhance public safety and community wellbeing. The programme will provide the evidence needed to guide safe and effective ways to reduce reliance on imprisonment.

UOI’s contribution to the programme will be focussed on analysing ethical and human rights issues raised by alternatives to carceral sentences (including the use of novel technologies to mitigate recidivism risk) and on contributing to the development of general principles to inform the safe and ethical reduction of prison populations.

LINK

More information on the programme and its team members can be found here: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/decarceration