Rob Rinder launches staunch attack on UK prisons as he makes calls for reform over criminal treatment

Rinder has recently explored how the British government has not delivered rehabilitation and not done justice to the word "punishment" - with many of those who are jailed end up repeating patterns but expecting a different result.

The 46-year-old recently sat down with RadioTimes to discuss his thoughts on the prison system and how the Norwegian has got it right, noting: "For those who have never been inside a prison, its purpose is punishment, removing individuals from society to a place that should be nasty and brutish, to reflect the feelings of the victims or their families.

"But in my experience as a criminal barrister, those people who do visit prisons, from lawyers or probation officers to volunteers, come away with a different view, regardless of their personal politics."

"We do not address the events that led them there in the first place. That’s not the case in Norway, where the prison system seeks to understand how someone has ended up committing an offence, however violent, and help them change their behaviour."

He added how he thought it would make more economic sense, and stop those from being released back into the community being more dangerous when they were first sentences, and likely to re-offend.

Rinder also commented on how families often wish the experience of re-offenders not to happen to another person, adding that he thought it is a time to think about how communities serve.

Earlier this month Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood said the UK prisons "are on the point of collapse" before setting out how the government planned on stopping the impending collapse of the criminal justice system.

There are only hundreds of places left in the adult male estate, prisons have been routinely functioning at over 99 per cent capacity since the beginning of 2023.

During his years as a barrister, Rinder specialises in international fraud and other financial crimes, however, also took on a case which involved British soldiers being charged with manslaughter after the deaths of Iraqi detainees and another concerning the innocent victims of a gang shooting.

As well as his legal and television careers, Rinder has written two crime novels and a legal guidebook for consumers. He made a documentary about his family history in the Holocaust and another exploring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Away from his criminal career, Rinder has occupied a number of presenting roles and recently began rumours that he and Rylan Clarke were in a romantic relationship and were open to the idea of marriage.

Touching on their close friendship with the I, Rinder said: "Rylan jokes we’re already like a married couple because we row all the time and we don’t have sex.

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"Maybe we should get married when we’re old. But now we’re really good friends."

For now, the duo are both individually very busy as they continue to work and host their separate projects.