As I have said multiple times, the prison service operates less like a system of rehabilitation and more like a human warehouse—a modern department of slavery hidden behind legal language. Instead of focusing on education, support, and genuine reintegration into society, prisons rely heavily on the cheap labour of the people they detain.
Prisoners are routinely paid as little as £10–£20 per week to carry out work that, outside prison walls, would earn a proper wage. This work is not limited to basic maintenance or voluntary skill-building tasks. It often includes outside contract labour: manufacturing metal cages and equipment for the prison service itself, producing items for the armed forces, and working for private companies such as JJ Sports, among others. These are not symbolic jobs—they generate real economic value, yet the people doing the work have no meaningful say and receive wages that would be illegal in any other setting.
Supporters of this system argue that prison labour teaches discipline and provides structure. However, this argument collapses when the pay is exploitative and the skills gained are narrow, repetitive, and often irrelevant to real employment opportunities after release. When labour is compulsory or refusal leads to punishment or loss of privileges, it stops being “rehabilitation” and starts resembling forced work dressed up as reform.
The deeper issue is profit. The prison system saves money and creates value by underpaying prisoners, while private companies benefit from labour that is cheaper than minimum wage and free from standard worker protections. Prisoners cannot unionise, cannot negotiate, and cannot realistically refuse. This creates a system where incarceration itself becomes economically useful, raising serious questions about whether justice or efficiency is the real priority.
I have said my piece on this system as it stands. Now I am going to introduce a new article published in Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners. The article adds further weight to these concerns, offering insight from within the prison system itself and exposing how prison labour is justified, who truly benefits from it, and why calling it “rehabilitation” may be one of the most misleading narratives in the modern justice system.
- Prisoners will make more kit for the Armed Forces
- Defence spending raised in face of Russian threat
- MoJ pledges more workshop jobs and longer hours
Prisoners will be put to work making equipment for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as the UK increases its military budget in the face of the threat from Russia.
Plans published by HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) in December revealed that workshops in jails will turn out equipment for the Armed Forces, including camouflage nets, metal posts, and picket drivers.
Prisoner works on military equipment for the MoD at HMP Lindholme’
It comes after the UK Government pledged to spend a bigger share of the nation’s wealth on the military. In November’s Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves set out plans to increase defence spending from 2.3 per cent of Gross Domestic Product in 2024 to 2.6 per cent by April 2027. Last summer’s Strategic Defence Review said Britain “faces a new era of threat” and must “pivot to a new way of war”. US President Donald Trump has told Europe, including the UK, to give Ukraine more help in its war against Russia.
In an ‘Action Plan’ published in November, the Ministry of Justice said that “HMPPS are … expanding the range of items and volume of products manufactured for the Ministry of Defence”. The plan gave examples of items that will be produced, and said more workshop space would be made available.
It builds on a deal struck between the MoD and HMPPS in 2014, known as Project Claustrum (Latin for ‘prison’), which has seen prisoners at more than 25 jails put in more than 1 million man-hours of labour, making and repairing equipment including sandbags, target boards, wooden pallets, hydraulic jacks, edge protectors, and burner boxes. It is said to have saved taxpayers L2 million.
The Action Plan was a response to criticism from inspectors that too many prisoners spend their days locked in their cells due to a lack of places in work or education. The plan says more jobs will be offered in Prison Industries workshops, making more items and forging links with more private companies.
In a further change, trials at five Category C prisons will see men working a 31-hour week – in contrast to the usual pattern in jails where even ‘full time’ work occupies 22 hours a week or less. The ‘Working Week Project’ began at HMP Ranby in August 2025 and will be running at four more sites by April, aiming “to mirror work in the community as far as possible”."
A lot of people will say that prisoners deserve to work for free. That punishment alone justifies exploitation. But if rehabilitation is truly the goal—as the prison service constantly claims—then this logic makes no sense. Two wrongs do not make a right. You cannot claim to be preparing people for life after prison while treating their labour as if it has no value.
If I owned a business on the outside and paid members of the public £10–£20 a week to do full-time work, I would be arrested. My business would be shut down, and I would rightly be accused of running a slave labour operation. Yet when the same thing happens inside prison walls, it is accepted, legalised, and quietly normalised. The armed forces and the Ministry of Defence benefit from this labour. Private companies benefit from it too. The only difference is that the workforce is imprisoned and powerless.
This is not rehabilitation. It is exploitation with a uniform on it.
If prisoners were paid minimum wage, or even something close to it, the argument would at least be different. But they are not. Most prisoners receive between £15 and £20 a week, and in some prisons it is pushed as low as £10. That amount does not reflect skill, effort, or risk. It barely covers basic necessities inside, let alone allows someone to save for release, support family, or feel any sense of dignity in their work.
Take my own job as an example. I am a bio-cleaner. This is hazardous work—cleaning environments that carry real health risks. On the outside, this kind of work would be paid properly and carried out with strict safety standards. Inside prison, we are paid £5 per job simply because we are prisoners. Even worse, we often struggle to get the correct equipment, including basic PPE. So not only are we paid next to nothing, but the prison system is actively putting our lives at risk to save money.
This raises a serious question about value. If the work is important enough to be done, if it is dangerous enough to require protective equipment, and if it produces real benefit for institutions and companies, then why is the labour behind it treated as disposable?
So I will end this with a simple question, one that cuts through every excuse and justification:
Would you work for £20 a week?
Because if the answer is no, then the system cannot honestly be called fair, rehabilitative, or just. It can only be called what it is: exploitation.
