On 18 July 2024, Southwark Crown Court handed down four- and five-year sentences to Just Stop Oil campaigners. Our survey shows the majority of the British public consider the sentences too harsh.
Last week, five Just Stop Oil activists were found guilty of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for planning direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022. One of the activists, Roger Hallam, was given a five-year prison term, while the other four each received four-year terms. These are considered the longest sentences ever handed down in the UK for non-violent protest actions.
To understand public opinion on these sentences, we conducted an online survey with 945 adults in the UK (nationally representative for age, sex, and political affiliation) via Prolific, asking about people's opinion of the sentencing.
A majority of respondents (61%) considered the sentences too harsh. 27% of respondents felt the sentences were ‘In proportion to the offence’, while only 12% felt the sentences were too lenient.
Markus Ostarek, Director of Research at Social Change Lab, who conducted the survey, said: "We were really struck by the contradiction between the opinions of some in the media that people engaging in disruptive protests should be harshly punished, and what the public have told us.
"This poll indicates a striking consensus among the British public that the sentences delivered to the Just Stop Oil campaigners do not align with the perceived gravity of their actions. This raises important questions about the proportionality of sentencing in cases of peaceful protest."
There has been widespread condemnation of the sentences. Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders, described the judgements as a “dark day for peaceful environmental protest, the protection of environmental defenders and indeed anyone concerned with the exercise of their fundamental freedoms in the United Kingdom”.
Dr Graeme Hayes, Reader in Political Sociology at Aston University said: "Sending non-violent activists to jail for five and four years is clearly incompatible with a liberal democracy. But no-one should be surprised by these sentences: they are a logical outcome of Britain’s authoritarian turn against protest over the last five years."
The question asked in our poll was: On 18 July, Just Stop Oil activists received prison sentences of four and five years for coordinating non-violent direct action protests on the M25 motorway that disrupted traffic several days in a row. Do you feel these prison sentences are:
● Far too lenient
● Lenient
● Slightly lenient
● Proportionate
● Slightly harsh
● Harsh
● Far too harsh
To provide an overview of people’s general opinions, we collapsed the factors “Far too harsh”, “Harsh”, and “Slightly harsh” into one category labeled “Too harsh” in the main plot. Similarly, “Far too lenient”, “Lenient”, and “Slightly lenient” were collapsed into one category labeled “Too lenient”. “In proportion to the offence” was renamed “Proportionate” for brevity.
The plot below shows the breakdown for all response levels:
If you have any questions or would like to discuss this research further, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
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