By Lorna Merrett 
July 2025

Currently, in the UK, there are around 100,000 people in the custody of the Prison Service—a population of similar size to the number who claimed asylum in the same year. Yet, despite the comparable numbers, one group finds itself the subject of many political football matches, while the other often ends up at the bottom of both politicians' and voters' priority lists—lucky to be included as a footnote in political debate. 

Many prisons find themselves trapped in a seemingly never-ending cycle of persistent poor conditions and overcrowding, each of these problems exacerbating the other. There are myriad reasons for this ill state, one of which is that prison reform and investment occupy a politically inconvenient intersection between public apathy, fiscal austerity, and the marginalisation of those most affected. Who ends up in prison is shaped not only by personal choices, but also by systemic factors—poverty, education, mental health, racial bias, and unequal access to support. Theoretically, the idea of rehabilitation is at the core of a prison—a fine balance between punishment and reintegration into society. In reality, this is far from the truth.  When the government's own statistics show that short-term sentences are more likely to increase offences, we are left with an awkward question: Do prisons actually protect the public?

In early 2025, the government released the Independent Sentencing Review, helmed by former Secretary of State for Justice David Gauke, as a 'consequence of a crisis in prison capacity'. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the report highlighted a widely held opinion of politicians, media, and the public: punishment should be prioritised above all else. As a result, meaningful rehabilitation often falls by the wayside. 

Undeniably, education has to play a key role in these rehabilitation efforts. At this point, I should clarify my position. As a young middle-class PhD student, I am on the receiving end of many privileges. Of particular relevance to this discussion is my access to a high level of education. Although traditional modes of teaching often failed me as an autistic student in my high school and undergraduate studies, my post-graduate experience has been a complete contrast. At times, it feels as though I have infinite knowledge at my fingertips, readily accessible with a click of a button. Despite the occasional overwhelming sense of uncertainty and unpredictability that scientific research inevitably brings, I do not take this privilege lightly. When reflecting on my education, it is beyond doubt that it has afforded me autonomy, clarity, and confidence—my growing knowledge of the world around me grounds me in all aspects of life. This was made clear to me in a recent visit to a prison.

It was an early Friday morning in central Glasgow that I sleepily convened with colleagues to travel to HMP Shotts. On the train ride, coffees and breakfast in hand, it perhaps hadn't quite dawned on us yet what we were embarking on. Situated in a small Scottish town between Glasgow and Edinburgh, the prison is home to around 500 male inmates serving long-term sentences, ranging from drug trafficking to murder—less than half the size of HMP Barlinnie, the largest and perhaps most famous prison in Scotland. I intended to give a talk at the prison's education unit on my research—biophysics and active matter. In my bag: a lightweight waterproof jacket, my passport, purse, house keys, phone, empty water bottles, and many transparent plastic bags filled with dried rice, macaroni shells, and Brazil nuts. 

Backdropped by the lush sheep-studded Scottish hills, covered in their signature grey haze, the prison entrance appeared to me very similar in design to many research buildings I had visited—albeit without the towering concrete perimeter walls topped with coils of sharp barbed wire. At the front desk, we were greeted by a friendly officer who took our passports and handed out bright-red visitor lanyards. Behind the desk stood silver security gates and X-ray scanners, not unlike those found in an airport. We were directed to store our personal items, including all technology, in a locker. And so, with identity badges around our necks, equipped with my bags of dried goods and empty water bottles, we proceeded through the security checks. 

The first thing I noticed was the posters serving as a warning to anyone attempting to smuggle drugs into the prison: 'You stand no chance against the scent receptors of our sniffer dogs', at which point my colleague made a quick remark about the accuracy of the poster's claim. The second thing I noticed was how thick the doors were. Each time we attempted to walk through a door on our way to the education unit, we had to wait while a guard with the magic button surveyed us through a security camera. Weaving through the many corridors and passing officers covered in security vests with belts equipped with protective items, it didn't occur to me that my un-ironed linen shirt and worn jeans served me absolutely no protection if any violence was encountered.

Upon entering the education unit, I was struck by how similar it felt to libraries of my childhood. The walls were covered in bright posters and shelves upon shelves of books and DVDs. The only difference between the memories of local libraries and where we found ourselves was the prison officers scattered amongst the reading material. The irony of the large sections of crime-based novels and films was not lost on us. After chatting with the head of the unit and a volunteer who led a monthly book club, we entered what was to be our classroom for the next three hours. The room wouldn't look out of place in my old primary school—a central desk surrounded by several chairs, with computer monitors sitting upon worktops lining two of the four walls. Interestingly, there was no clock on the walls, but posters about nutrition, mental health, and human anatomy. 

We set up our presentation slides on a monitor, and I assembled my bottles, filled with layers of rice, pasta, and nuts. Ten minutes early, a couple of men in navy blue sweatshirts branded with 'HMP Shotts' embroidery entered the room and sat across from us. They seemed more relaxed than I anticipated, although considering they were there on long-term sentences, time afforded them an ease in their surroundings that I didn't possess. The first man who came in immediately asked us what we would be covering. We answered with our respective topics, after which he started reeling off his knowledge about thermodynamics. I have to admit, I was not expecting to be talking about the quantum-mechanical caveats that accompany the third law of thermodynamics within five minutes of meeting a prisoner for the first time. 

The small room slowly filled up until all chairs were occupied. A latecomer walked in and asked what we'd be covering. Wanting to keep it simple, I replied, "physics", at which point he turned back round and left the room—I suppose the unearned 'boring' reputation of the subject I studied for 4 years precedes it, even in prison. In reality, after a great session on tissue engineering and DNA origami by my colleague, I talked about the dynamics shared across massive length scales between biological active matter, from flocks of birds to the cytoskeleton. 

After I attempted to add more thermodynamic depth to my talk by illustrating the far-from-equilibrium nature of living things via an analogy of a hill and a boulder, I passed around my bottles of dried food. By shaking the bottles, I thought this would be a prison-appropriate demonstration of the energy-dependent self-organisation of living systems via the Brazil nut effect. The main takeaway from the inmates may, instead, have been the edible nature of the Brazil nuts. While some of them picked through rice grains and pasta shells, my other colleague started his session on nerve damage and repair with a creative Parafilm-based demo. Throughout all three sessions, I was struck by the engagement of all the men, one of whom was avidly taking notes in a well-loved notebook. We had insightful conversations about the ethics of lab-grown meat and the logistics of research funding, while answering so many questions that I lost count. 

After our session finished, I distributed the rest of my backup Brazil nuts to the interested inmates. We thanked them for their attention as they filed out of the room. It became apparent that while we were secluded in our small teaching room, the rest of the education unit had filled up with many more prisoners, all in the same prison-branded sweatshirts. So we found ourselves standing in a library filled with people, 60% of whom were serving long sentences for violent crimes—not that this particularly dawned on us at the time. We made our way back out to the entrance of the prison, retracing our steps past the officers with heavy belts and shoes and through the camera-surveilled reinforced doors. In true Scottish form, a soaking mist of rain greeted us as we exited the building after reuniting with our phones and belongings. 

With an hour to kill before the next train to Glasgow, we had a quick snack at a local pub accompanied by some light small talk. Despite the football fans with half-drunk cans of lager sitting at the table across from us, the train journey back was a quiet one. All three of us were tired. It puzzled me. The talk I gave was of similar length to those I give at our research group meetings, with much less scientific detail. And yet, I found myself feeling exhausted. Upon getting through my front door, I started reflecting on the day. I received an email from my colleague, remarking that he, too, felt the unexpected tiredness and strangeness of talking about science with people who have committed serious crimes.

This brings me back to the idea of rehabilitation. We spent hours talking about our research with a group of prisoners, some of whom very likely had murdered people. While it didn't cross my mind at the time, it hit me when I was back in the safety of my own home. I had particularly enjoyed a conversation with an older inmate, the note-taker, who reminded me very much of my late grandad—I didn't know how long he had been in prison for, nor for what reason. The reality of why we were there in the first place and why the men, who had keenly sat across from us in the classroom only hours ago, were there started to dawn on me. I began to wonder how the victims and their families would feel about the session. How would I feel if my perpetrator were engaging in talks that even most of the general public don't have access to in prison? 

I believe education is a fundamental right. I often think that if more people knew about the beauty of science, the world would be a better place. Yet I found myself wondering if it was morally right of me to bring that into prison for men who had undoubtedly ruined many people's lives. Surely the fact that I was even thinking this brought my belief that education is a fundamental right into question? How would we decide who can and can't access education in prison? Do we educate drug traffickers but draw the line at armed robbers? It occurred to me that this direction of thinking aligned with what Gauke had highlighted at the start of his prison report: the public thinks prisons should focus on punishment. 

If we are to accept that education plays a key role in rehabilitation, then by withholding education as a resource from those who have committed crimes, surely, we would be capping their ability to reintegrate into society, and therefore not reduce their threat to the public. This brings up a jarring combination of thoughts: prisons must rehabilitate, for the good of the offender and the public, aided by education, but the prisoners in need of rehabilitation and education have ruined lives. Do they deserve education? It challenges my belief that everyone has the capacity for change. Are we to forever use the crime someone may have committed decades ago as a barrier to learning about science? In that case, we would be actively prohibiting their capacity to change and rehabilitate. 

While I acknowledge my access to science education has been a privilege, I don't believe it should be a privilege; in that all people should have the same access. By gatekeeping science for those who have committed crimes, no matter how serious, we would inherently be implying that access to knowledge is something that can be taken away from you, and therefore something you have to earn—a privilege. A child abuser or murderer should have the same ability to learn about the beauty of the natural world—it's an uncomfortable thought to think. But I would also argue that thinking science is something one should deserveis equally uncomfortable.