It’s my hope that George Monbiot’s piece (Today’s climate activist ‘criminals’ are tomorrow’s heroes: silencing them in court is immoral, 22 February) will fuel deeper interrogation of the criminal justice system and who or what it serves to protect in its treatment of protesters. I was part of a group of scientists prosecuted for a protest action last year; our days in court, coupled with what we have learned about the experiences of many others, have left me with uncomfortable questions.
Many people who have seen the inside of a court building will testify to the inefficiencies and inequalities that play out there. So when courts are as stretched as they seem to be, with a backlog of hundreds of thousands of trials, is it really in the public interest to prosecute peaceful protesters at all? Is it ever justifiable for non-violent defendants to be held in prison – some for many months – before their cases even make it to court? What is the cost of all of this, from the public money being spent on trials and imprisonment to the huge toll that incarceration and prosecution take on alleged criminals?
