REMAND WITCHHUNT
“Innocent Until Proven Guilty
The Lie We Built Prisons Around”
A critique of pre-trial detention, fear-led policy, and philosophical failure in the UK justice system.
“Innocent until proven guilty.”
It’s one of the most repeated principles in the British legal system—printed in textbooks, quoted by politicians, etched into the minds of schoolchildren as a foundational pillar of justice. And yet, behind the walls of Britain’s prisons, thousands of people sit—unconvicted, untried, and unproven. Not because they’ve been sentenced, but because the system is “holding them for trial.” They’re on remand. Remand has become a modern legal contradiction. If everyone is truly innocent until proven guilty, then why are people being punished before their guilt is determined?
The irony is ancient.
A few hundred years ago, in parts of England, those accused of witchcraft were tied to stools and submerged in rivers. This was called the “ducking test.” If they floated, they were witches—guilty—and they were burned. If they drowned, they were innocent.
But of course, they were also dead. It was trial by punishment. You learn guilt through destruction. There was no real way out. Fast forward to 2025, and it’s hard to argue the logic has changed much—only now the ducking stool is concrete, grey, and called Pentonville or Wandsworth. In England and Wales, over 13,000 people are currently on remand. That’s more than one in six of all people in prison—and this proportion has been growing steadily. Some will be found guilty and sentenced. But many will not. They’ll walk free after months (or years) of lost time, family breakdown, job losses, and psychological trauma. And they’ll be left with no compensation, no apology, and no acknowledgment that justice didn’t serve them—it consumed them.
What exactly are they doing in prison? The government calls it “holding.” A practical decision—just so the accused are “available” for trial. But this practicality has morphed into a punishment of its own. In many remand cases, there’s no allegation of violence. No physical threat. No hardened criminal. Just accusations—perhaps theft, fraud, drug possession, or breach of a court order. And yet, even without guilt proven, and without danger posed, people are locked up “just in case.” Why? Because they might not attend court. Or they might re-offend. Or it’s just easier this way.
But holding someone “just in case” is not justice. It’s pre-emptive punishment.
And when you punish someone before they’ve been found guilty, you make a mockery of the principle you claim to uphold.
Think about this logic in another context. MPs in the UK are often given second homes in London. Why? Because they need to be “available for Parliament.” The justification is practicality. They’re not being rewarded—just accommodated.
But imagine if instead of giving them a flt, we gave them a prison cell. “You’ll be nearby for when we need you,” we’d say. “It’s not punishment—it’s just holding." The absurdity of that idea highlights exactly how flawed the current remand logic is. “Availability” should not equal “incarceration.” The cost of this system is massive—financially and socially. It costs the government over £47,000 a year to imprison someone. That’s more than many people earn. Meanwhile, families fall apart. Mental health collapses. Housing is lost. Children are pulled into care. And for what? So that someone accused—but not convicted—can be easier to manage? We wouldn’t accept this logic in most areas of life. You don’t get fired for being accused. You don’t get expelled just for being suspected. But in the justice system, accusation has become enough.
The principle says: you are innocent until proven guilty.
The reality says: you’re guilty enough to wait in prison.
It’s a duality that the system tries to ignore. It uses words like “holding,” “risk assessment,” and “court logistics” to disguise what’s really happening: deprivation of liberty for someone who hasn’t been found guilty. If we can’t afford to treat innocence with freedom, then what is the value of that principle at all? Of course, the conversation becomes different when violence is involved. If someone poses a serious danger to others—or if they’ve violated bail multiple times—then holding them for safety might be justifiable.
But these cases are not the majority. Most remand prisoners are not violent. Many are young. Some have mental health issues. Others are homeless and simply lacked a fixed address to be bailed to. In other words, they are victims of circumstance—not threats to society. Governments know that the public fear crime more than they fear injustice. So the system is tilted toward caution. Toward over-incarceration. Because no politician wants to be the one blamed if someone on bail re-offends. But no one gets blamed when an innocent person wastes a year in jail. The incentives are broken. It’s safer politically to over-punish than under-protect. But in doing so, we drift further from justice—and closer to something medieval.
The ducking stool never really went away. It just changed shape. Back then, women floated or drowned. Now, people are “held” until they’re judged—by which time, the punishment has already happened. The logic is the same: if you survive prison, maybe you were innocent. But you had to suffer first.And if you’re found guilty—well, the time served counts towards your sentence anyway. So no harm done?
Except that’s not true. Because liberty lost can’t be refunded. And justice delayed is justice denied. A justice system must do more than punish. It must protect the values it claims to defend.
“Innocent until proven guilty” isn’t just a phrase. It’s a moral contract between the individual and the state.
When that contract is broken—when punishment begins before proof—then we are no longer operating under justice. We are operating under fear.
The question is no longer: Did this person commit a crime? It becomes: Is it easier if we treat them like they did?
Remand is not just a legal category. It’s a philosophical failure. It exposes the gap between what we say and what we do. It reveals a system that has become more focused on efficiency than ethics.
The answer isn’t simple—but the questions should be unavoidable:
Why are people in prison who haven’t been found guilty?
Why is it acceptable to punish before proof?
What does that say about our idea of justice?
Until we reconcile these contradictions, we cannot claim to have a fair system. We will merely have a fast one. A convenient one. A fear-driven one. And if we’re not careful, we might look back one day and realise we didn’t evolve from the ducking stool—we just gave it a new name.