April 10, 2025 • 35 mins
Pia Sinha worked in prisons for 24 years before being appointed CEO of the charity Prison Reform Trust and she describes herself as a "ridiculously optimistic" person, who believes the prisons can be made to work properly.
Sinha started her career in prison as a psychologist and went on to work in female, male prisons and institutions for young offenders. She was the governor at three prisons and later was responsible for all the women’s prisons in the country.
Sinha, who believes many of the prisoners in the UK should not be behind bars, speaks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy in the latest episode of Ways to Change the World.
Produced by Silvia Maresca, Ka Yee Mak and Tom Gordon-Martin.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World.
I'm Krishnan Gurimurthy, and this is the podcast in which we
talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their
lives and the events that have helped shape them.
My guest this week joined the Prison Service as a
psychologist. She ended up running prisons as
a governor and was director of women, in charge of all women
prisoners. But she has now left and is the
(00:21):
chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust Charity Pearson.
Her welcome. Thank you for having me.
How would you change the? World.
So it's a massive question and Ialways sort of slightly worry
about coming across to trite, but I shall try and be grounded
in my response. So what it triggered for me, the
(00:42):
question was when we were doing practicing psychology, it was a
particular type of therapy called solution focused therapy.
And what we did was that when a client was in the middle of a
deep sort of stock crisis, we asked them what was called a
miracle question. And the miracle question works
in the way that you'd say you went to bed at night and while
you were sleeping, a miracle happened.
(01:04):
You wake up the next morning, you don't quite know that this
miracle has happened. What will be the first things
that tell you that something wasdifferent?
So I kind of used that as a way of framing the the response for
me. And I guess what I would do, so
the miracle would happen and I would notice that people were
reacting to things in a slightlydifferent way.
(01:25):
And what I would say is that they would be more centred into
their wise mind. So what we have in our, in the
way that we think, another psychological theory, if you
will, and forgive me for that, is that you have you're in your,
in the way that humans react is that you have an emotion brain
and you have your rational brain.
And if you imagine them as two intersecting circles in between
(01:48):
the sort of overlap of that Venndiagram, you have your wise
mind. And it's the place where you are
not thinking about things in in an overly robotic way.
But equally, you're not right inthe middle of your emotional
state. And the bit in the middle, which
is the balance, is the wise mind.
Is part of what's problem what the problem is with our approach
to prison? But we're too emotional about
(02:09):
it. We're too emotional about it or
we're too kind of robotic about it or we're not emotional
enough. And somewhere in the middle, you
have your wise mind, which is a place where you have the
balance, right. And I think that the question
about how I would change the world is I would say that we
would as as a as a group of individuals have the ability to
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channel and fast track our way into our wise mind when we were
thinking about the problems thatwe face.
So that we're making compassionate and evidence based
decisions, but that have emotionin them, but they're not overly
swayed by the emotional content of what we're dealing with.
So. What's wrong with the way we
approach prison at the moment? I think the, the, the, what's
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happening right now is that we are seeing a reluctance to
really engage in what the evidence is telling us and what
the wisdom of that evidence is telling us.
And we are drawn to knee jerk reactions.
And that is what's driving the, the agenda.
And I think that when you are looking after some of the most
(03:15):
challenging and difficult and damaged people in, in this
world, you need to take a step back from, from the rhetoric and
really look at what works and how we need to approach the,
the, the tricky and the wicked problems without sort of
entering into a sort of maelstrom of, of emotions.
What is the biggest example of where we are not following the
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evidence? So I guess the topical issue is
what's happening currently around the Sentencing Council's
guidelines. I think that what's what's
occurred is that we've fixated on an incorrect and a
misinterpreted version of what those guidelines are trying to
enact or recommend. They're simply recommending that
(04:00):
we need to ask for a pre sentence report, ask For more
information about an individual's history, what may
have driven them to offending. It's a perfectly valid,
legitimate a question to ask when you're about to sentence
someone and. This is not just about the
colour of your skin, it's. Not just the colour of.
Social economics, correct gender, everything.
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It's about everything. It's a it's good practice and
it's not trying to influence thejudiciary towards deciding what
to do and how to sentence someone.
It's just giving them all the information that they might find
relevant before making that decision.
And that's all that the recommendations are asking for.
But what's happened, which is usbeing in motion, mind if you, if
(04:44):
you take that theory forward, isthat we've fixated on the wrong
thing. We've fixated on the fact that
we're going to have a 2 tier justice system, for example,
which means that some individuals get a bit of a, a
bit of a touch and that's not true.
That's actually factually inaccurate.
All we're saying is, is that it's good practice for the
(05:06):
judiciary to have all the information that they could
possibly need so that they come to the right conclusion about
how someone needs to be dealt with or sentenced, etcetera.
But because this rhetoric has now become so charged, action is
being taken in a way that is is a misinterpretation of the
intention and and that's where we are going wrong.
(05:28):
I mean what what people on the other side of this say is that
we already have a 2 tier or a multi tiered criminal justice
system which discriminates against people from minorities
from the policing of crime rightthrough to sentencing.
Do you believe that's true, as someone who's been in the
system? Well, absolutely.
And I think that what what's ironic about this is that we
have had reports, the Lammy report, for example, has widely
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been accepted by this government, by the previous
government, and it has acknowledged that there is
inherent biases in the criminal justice system which need to be
corrected. We also have the Equalities Act.
They're all basically trying to say that, you know, the way you
deal with difference is not by trying to treat everyone the
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same, it's by having a nuanced approach towards it.
So I find it slightly baffling that we're in this place where
despite all of the the evidence that we have accepted, we're in
that place where we're focusing on an argument that's slightly
wrong headed. Is it simply because politics is
now driven by social media, which is in turn determined by
(06:37):
emotional responses to things? I I'm afraid so, yeah.
I think that this is what, and this is what feels slightly
dangerous and slightly risky because you're being LED into
alleyways that are meaningless while the real social problems,
the really challenging problems then become completely ignored.
It becomes a distraction. It becomes a noise in the
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system. And while our attentions are
captivated by the the the the the titillation of that noise,
we're actually ignoring the realthings that we can do to make a
difference. A wider review going on at the
moment about sentencing by DavidGork, former Conservative
cabinet minister, and when that was announced it was widely
(07:18):
thought that this would lead to a massive reduction in the
number of people going to prison.
Do you think that's what we need?
Yes, absolutely. I think that when the review was
announced, we were Cocker hoop. We were excited, our sector was
really excited about it and we remain optimistic.
We want to see what the outcomesof this review are.
(07:39):
We have to actually, in fact, we're in place where the review
almost becomes really urgent andnecessary because it's what's
seen as the answer to trying to reduce the prison population.
So the capacity crisis in prisonis what's driven the Commission
of the sentencing review it at some level, that's what's
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driving. And that's also wrong as well,
isn't it? The the the.
Fact that it's being driven by resources and numbers rather
than what's the right thing to do is also problematic.
It's problematic, but in some ways it's still welcome.
Sometimes you need a crisis to to kind of create the
opportunity for some sensible reform to take place.
(08:22):
And the sentencing review is probably probably been driven by
the crisis, but actually was needed anyway.
And why? Why do you think fewer people
need to go to prison having run one?
Having run one, I would say thatmy experience would suggest that
there are quite a proportion of people that really shouldn't be
in prison for whom the solution towards reform and
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rehabilitation isn't prison. There are definitely people who
do need to be in prison, but fora percentage of people who have
drifted into prison because of problems that have occurred much
earlier on in their lives, what they need is some support and
rehabilitation and care at that earlier point so that they
(09:04):
didn't drift into custody in prison in the 1st.
And when you say they've drifted, lifted into prison, I
mean, isn't that language a bit of a problem?
They've broken the law. They've broken the codes and the
rules of society. Yes, I accept that.
I accept them. That's a fair challenge.
So drift, the way, the way I usethe word drifted is probably
that there are there've been some conditions that have
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happened or there's some life events that have happened that
have made those kind of crossroads quite difficult for
people to navigate. So rather than choosing one
part, they've chosen another. And actually it isn't, it isn't
a caveat, it's not a catch all. So there are people who've had
really terrible poverty strickenlives, They've had terrible
childhoods, they've had trauma and they haven't committed
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crimes and broken the law and ended in prison and great.
But there are others who haven'tfound their way out of those
problems and crises that they have probably gone into a life
of drug dependency. They've gone into a life full of
really poor relationships. And those kinds of life events
have meant that they have come into contact with the criminal
(10:09):
justice system. And those individuals, rather
than put them in prison where they lose any anchors that they
might have, they need to be supported sort of upstream.
So what? What portion do you think of the
prison population shouldn't be in there?
Well, I know that, you know thatthe numbers have been have been
kind of thrown about and I, I. Dodge is thrown about, but I
mean, James Simpson is the minister now.
(10:30):
Who was your chairman? You know, famously said that
he'd have let 1/3 a third out. Yeah, they shouldn't before he
became a minister. That's right.
He came on this program. Yes, I know.
Yeah. And said a third of them
shouldn't be in there and and that virtually no women should
be in prison. Yeah.
Well, you know, I don't know howhe did the maths and we've not
done the maths on this, but he'sprobably right.
I would say that, you know, whenI, I started my career working
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in a women's prison, right, as apsychologist and I would say how
would estimate that, that, you know, majority of the women that
I saw, you know, who I did therapy with, I would say they
shouldn't have been in prison, you know, because if they were
supported and helped much earlier on, we would have
prevented them from going down this route.
And why? Are women different to men?
(11:15):
You know why? Why is the proportion so
different? I think that, you know, actually
it's not they're not different from men.
So what I would say based on my experience of working
psychologically with both men and women, the kinds of
experiences that young girls andyoung boys have are exactly the
same. How they manifest themselves in
(11:35):
adolescence or older life in terms of the crimes that they
might commit are quite different.
But women tend to their trauma stories lead them to certain
paths which we need to acknowledge need different kind
of support. Give me.
An example most. Of their most of their
offending, majority of women's offending is nonviolent
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offending for a start, whereas men sadly are they're they're
more violent offending. So the also a lot of women are
in relationships where they are often coerced into offending.
They also have the added difficulty of having children
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who they end up looking after. And when they do, there are
other pressures and strains on them.
And I think that that requires aslightly different approach.
So understanding the reasons whywomen commit crimes is really
important to understanding what the solutions for them need to
be. So that we need to have an
approach that's a bit more kind of nuance towards why someone is
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doing what they're doing and what would help them.
So what? Was it like for you running
prisons when you think most of the people in there shouldn't be
in there? Really hard, really hard.
But what you do do, and this is the bit that I feel quite
passionate about, is that even amongst all of this craziness
that's happening in the world, you know, the stuff we were
talking about before, you still have to be the voice of reason
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and compassion and have hope. Because unless there are people
like yourself and the vast majority of practitioners who
are actually there to do a good job, how do you actually try
and, you know, influence the system?
You know, so when you're there and you see that this is in this
is not right, or this is not fair or this is not just more
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importantly, you still have to go, well, how do I make make a
difference? How do I influence that?
And the more senior you get in your career, the more influence
you might have, the more impact you can have on the lives of
those individuals. So did you.
Spend a lot of time as a prison governor thinking this is
unjust. I spent a lot of time in as a
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prison governor being focused onwhat the outcomes for prisoners
needed to be. Because what happens when you
run prisons, You get quite quickly overwhelmed with the
sort of managerial tasks of running a prison.
And that takes you away from thecentral point of your existence.
And the central point of your existence is the way I saw it
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was how do I make a difference to the lives of those, those
individuals that are here to have a potentially a reset while
they're in prison? Because I think that's the
purpose of prison. The purpose of prison, yes, it
is to punish, but it's equally about rehabilitation and
allowing someone to have that second chance.
And so when you are running a prison, you want to create an
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environment where that that ideathrives, that you're creating
opportunities for people to thrive rather than decline.
And the stories I hear from my, my ex colleagues who are running
prisons is that it is absolutelyhorrendous for, for them as
people, as leaders who are trying to make sense of it and
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try to make it safe and decent and nonviolent and prevent
people from, you know, killing themselves.
I mean, it's literally that awful.
And it's just a constant churn of crisis and trauma that staff
are facing and people in prison are facing every day that they
all their, their, their ambitionis about just getting through
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the day. So forget.
About rehabilitation, let's justget through the day without
somebody killing themselves or somebody.
Else, yeah. And those, those those leaders
and those prison staff who managed to, despite all of that,
run safe, ordered, predictable regimes need to be applauded in
this current climate because it's it, it's awful.
(15:44):
So when the government talks about these brand new prisons
that are all marvellous and brilliant, are they?
I didn't visit HMP Mill site that opened last week, but my
colleague did and he said it wasa very impressive facility.
But you know, the true test comes when you fill it with
people. But also you've got to make sure
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that the staff are able to cope with that, you know, and I think
that that's the tricky bit. You can have a shiny new
facility that has everything, but in the end, it's about human
to human relationships. And how how are how equipped our
staff to deal with that? Because these are some of the
most challenging people of our society.
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And what and what? Is the reality about prison
officers and who they are, why they go into it and how good
they are it's. Difficult because when you have
people in prison that have that are very prison experienced,
who've been in prisons through their lives, for example, and
are older and and savvy, and then you've got very
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inexperienced people working with them who've not really
built up enough life experience.And I'm not being ageist.
You'll get young people who are totally switched on and have the
emotional intelligence and the right skills, but you do have
others who've not really experienced anything that will
prepare them for what that is going to be like.
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I think that that combination and that clash, that meeting of
those, those two things will be very, very challenging, Very
challenging. And So what you need to do as a
leader, which is one of the things that you do have to focus
on as a governor, not just what the outcomes of prisoners are,
but also how you're looking after your staff is what are you
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doing to look after their well-being?
What are you looking at? What are you doing to their
welfare? How are you training them?
How are you equipping them with the right tools to be able to do
this very, very complicated task?
You know, prisons are a closed community prison officers role.
You know, you're one minute you're a nurse, next minute
you're a policeman, next minute you're a prison officer, next
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minute you're a social worker. It's a highly skilled job, which
is pretty. Impossible to be in your wise
head. Correct.
As a as a prison officer, isn't it?
It's. Very, very difficult unless you
are a, you know, really creatinga culture that encourages wise
mind, you know, so you're encouraging a culture where
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staff are exposed to reflection,reflective practice, who
understand about relational working, you know, all of those
things. They give you that wisdom.
I mean the. The trouble is that, I mean, you
know, the experience of this government is really
instructive. You know, when it first came in,
appointed James Timpson as the prison's minister, there was
this big sort of, you know, waveof, oh, wow, there's going to be
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a new enlightened approach to prison.
And, you know, we'll be sending fewer people to prison and, you
know, things are going to change.
Then you get the riots, and there is this immediate demand
to lock them up and some pretty tough sentences.
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And that kind of shows you the sort of the basic dilemma,
doesn't it? They're probably the same people
who were arguing for a more enlightened approach to prison,
suddenly saw these race rioters who they loathe and say, yeah,
lock them up, yeah. And that's the that's the issue.
You know, you, if you're, if you're coming from a principled
place, it has to be applied universally.
(19:12):
You can't pick and choose what you like and what's consistent
and what you don't like. So it's, it's a wicked problem.
It's a tricky thing to try and understand and, and, and at that
time and as, and for me especially, you know, as a woman
and as a woman of colour, it triggered me and it does trigger
you. And but that's the the
complexity of the job did did. Some of those sentences make you
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wince. They didn't.
Make me wince, but it did. I really had to dig deep and try
and find that sort of small kernel of empathy to try and
understand what was driving someof the behaviour, not to condone
it, but to try and understand it.
Because without that empathy, without that compassion, you do
then join that brigade of lock them up and throw away the key.
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And it's so easy to do that. You know, people in prison,
depending on the things that they have done, they push your
buttons. Whatever position you want to
take, they will push your buttons.
So it's even more important thatyou're able to stand back from
it. And that's part of your
training. That's the part of the training
that I think was most useful when I was training as a
(20:15):
psychologist. You have to stand back.
You have to suspend your judgement now given.
You say that the current crisis is really driven by numbers.
Is it is it the case that prisondoesn't work?
Or is it that prison on these resources can't work?
I think there are some people, as we said before, who do need
to be in prison, who need that time away from the people that
(20:39):
they have been hurting. But that's where the purpose of
prison becomes really important.So if you if you say that
whether prison works, prison will work.
If it's not overcrowded and beset by crises, when a prison
is well LED, when it's functioning well, when it has
purpose, when it has interventions, when it has
(21:01):
meaningful activity for people to engage with, then it does
work. But in the current state where
literally all someone's getting is perhaps 45 minutes of fresh
air a day with no predictabilityand you're spending the vast
majority of your time in a tiny cell with another cellmate and a
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toilet. How can that do anything for you
for changing your mindset or rehabilitating you or helping
you? And if those that's the state
and that's the permanent state of prisons, then you no, it
doesn't work. And and so.
How do you feel now about what this government is likely to end
up doing? I mean, do you, do you still
feel optimistic? Well, you know, Christian, I'm
(21:43):
I'm a ridiculously optimistic person by nature and I feel that
I have to be optimistic because otherwise how else will you keep
going on but the decision? On the sentencing guidelines,
which he began talking about, doesn't suggest that that's the
direction of travel. It suggests that this government
is sort of caving into social media pressure and the pressure
(22:04):
from reform and the ConservativeParty and everything else which
is tough on law and order. It's.
Tough. It's been a tough week for us,
for all of us, and we're waitingto see what happens.
But I do think that, you know, the sentencing review is
imminent, hoping that there's going to be some sensible
recommendations in it that the government take up the thing
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that can you see? In the current climate, a
government minister standing up and saying, you know what, we're
not going to send people to prison anymore.
But I. I think they don't have a choice
because also what will drive some of this is that they do
have to tackle the overcrowding crisis.
Because if they do nothing, if they don't take any of the
recommendations and in fact, saythat, you know, we're, we're,
we're, we're fine. And we're going to be, you know,
(22:47):
our our policies about sort of incarceration.
You're going to end up with the same problem that you had last
summer more. Barges and more.
Barges and more courts saying that they can't send people to
prison. I mean, it becomes, well, you
know, public safety grinds to a halt because you're then having
to say, don't arrest people, don't send people to court,
(23:08):
don't send people to prison after they've been convicted
because this is what happens. What do you?
Think the failure then has been in terms of winning public
opinion on the censors and guidelines cause ultimately
Robert Jenrick from the Tories has run a sort of very
aggressive campaign around 2 tier policing and two tier
justice. The government has essentially
caved in and buckled to it so. What's happened is, is that, and
(23:31):
this is they're focused on misinformation.
The misinformation is that this,these guidelines are going to
influence the sentence that people will get.
It's not the sentencing. Well, what's?
The point of them then it's. About making giving, doing a.
It's called a pre sentence report.
(23:52):
A pre sentence report is just good practice that gives the
judge some information off on the individual who's about to be
sentenced. So it tells them what might have
been the conditions that led to their offending, what might be
some of their back story. But it will.
Influence them then won't. It will influence the.
Well, that's isn't that the point?
(24:13):
It's. It's about informing them.
Ultimately, it's about the decision.
The independence of the judiciary still gets maintained.
It's good practice for people tohave as much information as
possible when you're making a decision.
I think that we would agree thatas a universal truth, if you're
making a decision, get as much information as you need and can
have because that will allow youto make a sensible decision.
(24:35):
And that's all the guidelines and they were guidelines.
Remember, they were just guidelines.
They were saying that in certaincases we recommend that you
request a pre sentence report. That's all the guidelines were
saying. But because the bit that has
been focused on is based on incorrect information, what it's
done is that it's kind of rabbleroused towards the wrong thing.
(24:58):
And what? Because So how do you?
You know, how, how do you stop that happening again when it's
going to be a much bigger issue of the numbers of people you're
sending to prison in the 1st place?
You know, whether people should be sent to prison at all, let
alone the guidelines that would govern it.
It's going to be a much bigger row, isn't it?
It? Will be a bigger row and you
have to, you know, you have to kind of, you know, roll your
(25:18):
sleeves up and and and, you know, go for it.
So what should? They do there that they didn't
because they've, you know, this one has been a failure from your
perspective, the other side havewon.
So how are you going to win the next one, which is a bigger
battle? Well, we just, you know, we just
have to keep chipping away at it.
It's a difficult question to answer, but you know, what do
PRT do? PRT is business is about
(25:39):
informing the, the, you know, whoever is operating within the
criminal justice sector about the facts and about the
evidence. And what we need to do is move
out of our echo chamber. We need to move out of the kind
of converted into the areas where, you know, people don't
necessarily know about the factsand have faith in the belief
(26:00):
that when people are armed with the facts and the evidence that
they do think slightly differently.
And I think the thing that we need to do is enter that space a
bit more. We need to start having
conversations with the public through whichever means that
feel important. And part of what I do when I do
media, my what my colleagues do,what what other others in the
(26:21):
sector do is that that's what we're trying to do.
We're trying to influence the the debate towards becoming more
sensible and and wiser if you. Think about your time as a
governor then. I mean, you're, you're not what
most people would picture as a prison governor, you know, on
all sorts of levels. You know, you're, you're, you're
(26:42):
a woman from an ethnic minority.You're a psychologist by
training. You're, you know, not mild
mannered, but you know, a normalperson.
Not a rofty tufty. Bloke how do people treat you?
I think that, you know, I get asked that a lot.
I think part of what happens when you go into prison work and
(27:07):
the world of prison, it's less about what you look like and
where you came from. It's about whether you have
walked the walk, whether you've done the tough jobs, whether
you've got credibility, What areyou like as a as a human being?
And those are the things that get you judged rather than, you
know, whether you look, you fit the mold.
(27:28):
And yeah, you know, people will double take and people will ask
you strange questions sometimes and all the rest of it.
But actually the credibility that you get is through the work
that you've done and your track record, as it were.
And how, how much did you interact with politicians then
in that role? Yeah, very.
Little So the first politician that I had any contact with was
(27:50):
when when I governed Liverpool, because it went so
catastrophically wrong. It got all the media attention
for the wrong reasons. I was probably the first prison
governor that was invited to a Select Committee and had to give
evidence and and at the time Rory Stewart was the prison's
minister and he was very kind ofhands on and wanted to speak to
(28:11):
the operational line as it was the first real contact I had.
But other than that or prior to that, very little What's?
Gone wrong at. Liverpool, practically
everything. So I think that, you know, there
were some of the real challengesthat are faced now that was
being faced then. And at the time there was it was
(28:32):
a crumbling Victorian building that was falling apart.
And it was ironically a capacitycrisis.
And what was being required of prisons up and down the country
was to be filled up and every space mattered.
And you had poor regime, you hada crumbling building, you had
(28:53):
frustrated prisoners, you had disenfranchised staff.
And the whole thing was just there was a sort of hardening of
the of of the of the view of what good looked like.
So after prisons very easily candeteriorate.
So if you don't have someone who's there kind of think that's
(29:15):
not right and someone in a leadership position saying
that's not right, they very comfortably default to just, you
know, being wrong. And I think over a period of
time, what I described at Liverpool was that there was
just a sense of learned helplessness.
There was a sort of blindness towhat was really going on.
(29:35):
And it then got inspected and itwas, it got caught with his
pants down. But it was probably something
that was happening up and down the country and everything that
was happening in Liverpool was driven by the fact that people
stopped seeing that it was in such a mess.
(29:55):
And so, you know, from from the state of the cells to the state
of how staff and prisoners dealtwith each other, from the
governance that, you know, looked at performance, it was
all just misfiring on all, all angles basically.
And, and what difference is it making now having a prisons
(30:15):
minister who comes from a prisonreforming background in James
Timpson, who had very strong views before he went into
government about what should happen to prisons?
He's not in charge of the sentencing review but he's in
charge of running prisons. So is he making any difference?
I think the biggest difference that it makes is that he knows
(30:36):
prisons, he's been in prisons, he has been operating within
prisons for decades, which is something that prison ministers
who've been given the portfolio never have, you know, so the
first time a prison minister visits a prison, it's the first
time they've ever entered a prison in their entire career.
And so that fundamental difference is quite important
(30:59):
because you get it. And I think what happens, you
know, you have the civil servicemachinery, you have the
political machinery, all of which is going to try and
influence you as a minister. And it's important then that as
a minister, you have, you know, what you're talking about,
you've seen it, you've walked the walk so that when you say,
when you see things or you hear things or you're being
(31:21):
influenced about things and don't feel right, you can say,
well, actually, that's not right.
Because as a minister, you're very dependent on the on, on
what you get briefed by. And you need to be critical of
that sometimes. And I think that the good thing
about James will be that he will, will know, you know, he,
he understands what good looks like.
(31:43):
He has had several conversationswith prison leaders.
He is, you know, he's not someone who's just come in and
done a high profile visit. He actually go whenever I met
him when I first was running prisons and he just goes off and
speaks to prisoners and speaks to staff.
You know, he won't have the red carpet treatment.
He, you know, so I think that hecomes from a place, an informed
(32:07):
place, and I think that's reallyimportant.
Is there any difference noticeable yet from?
My point of view from being in the third sector, yes, he's very
keen on engagement. He speaks to us, he's set up
many sort of round table events.He is keen to hear our voice and
(32:27):
I think that he's not made-up his mind about everything, which
is right, but he consults, he genuinely consults.
It's not a tick box exercise. He wants to know.
He has a curiosity and he he doesn't assume he knows it all.
So I have noticed a difference and, you know, I still have
colleagues in the civil servant service and they have noticed a
(32:49):
difference. I think that lack of formality
that he has allows people to relax, which means that they're
more likely to speak their truthand to.
Come back to your original desire for us to be more in our
wise mind. I mean how to how to do it?
Real tips so the. Tips, I guess, you know, it's
(33:10):
about knowing yourself quite a lot of self reflection, being
able to practice things like mindfulness and, you know, doing
those, those kind of good healthy things that you need to
do as a human being to be aware of what is triggering you and
what's setting you off and what are what's your where's your
(33:31):
chimp taking you, you know, and,and being aware of all of those
factors, but also engineering healthy habits in yourself.
But taking time out, you know, not, not just entering into the
thing, into the debate feet first and and and and then sort
of walking out what you need to do, do you think?
(33:52):
You should be on social media, which is obviously the thing
that drives the most emotional responses at the moment.
Oh. Social media is getting a
massive kicking and I think that, you know, it's slightly
scary and I don't quite know where we stand on it.
I think that we need it because you need a platform and you need
to be able to amplify your voice.
And, and also when you're talking about not being in your
(34:13):
echo chain, but you need to be able to reach out to people that
wouldn't normally kind of listento what you're saying.
So I think it's important, but Idon't know the answer to that
yet. But what I do know is that what
stops you from engaging with theprocess is not having any hope
and becoming cynical. And so despite the challenges
(34:34):
and despite the difficulties andthe conflicts, you need to keep
going on and fighting that fightaround bringing hope and
bringing reality and bringing anevidence base and sensible
debate into the whole discussion.
Because if you then start dialing down your own voice
because you've got fed up and and negative and frustrated with
(34:56):
it, then there then all those voices suddenly stop.
And then you've got no voice andthen you've got no debate.
You've got no one being in wise mind.
So you've got to keep going, right?
OK. So now thank you very much
indeed. Thank.
You thank you for. Sharing your way to change the
world. I hope you enjoyed listening to
that. You can watch all of these
interviews on the Channel 4 NewsYouTube channel.
Our producer is Sylvia Maresca and until next time, bye bye.
Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World.
I'm Krishnan Gurimurthy, and this is the podcast in which we
talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their
lives and the events that have helped shape them.
My guest this week joined the Prison Service as a
psychologist. She ended up running prisons as
a governor and was director of women, in charge of all women
prisoners. But she has now left and is the
(00:21):
chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust Charity Pearson.
Her welcome. Thank you for having me.
How would you change the? World.
So it's a massive question and Ialways sort of slightly worry
about coming across to trite, but I shall try and be grounded
in my response. So what it triggered for me, the
(00:42):
question was when we were doing practicing psychology, it was a
particular type of therapy called solution focused therapy.
And what we did was that when a client was in the middle of a
deep sort of stock crisis, we asked them what was called a
miracle question. And the miracle question works
in the way that you'd say you went to bed at night and while
you were sleeping, a miracle happened.
(01:04):
You wake up the next morning, you don't quite know that this
miracle has happened. What will be the first things
that tell you that something wasdifferent?
So I kind of used that as a way of framing the the response for
me. And I guess what I would do, so
the miracle would happen and I would notice that people were
reacting to things in a slightlydifferent way.
(01:25):
And what I would say is that they would be more centred into
their wise mind. So what we have in our, in the
way that we think, another psychological theory, if you
will, and forgive me for that, is that you have you're in your,
in the way that humans react is that you have an emotion brain
and you have your rational brain.
And if you imagine them as two intersecting circles in between
(01:48):
the sort of overlap of that Venndiagram, you have your wise
mind. And it's the place where you are
not thinking about things in in an overly robotic way.
But equally, you're not right inthe middle of your emotional
state. And the bit in the middle, which
is the balance, is the wise mind.
Is part of what's problem what the problem is with our approach
to prison? But we're too emotional about
(02:09):
it. We're too emotional about it or
we're too kind of robotic about it or we're not emotional
enough. And somewhere in the middle, you
have your wise mind, which is a place where you have the
balance, right. And I think that the question
about how I would change the world is I would say that we
would as as a as a group of individuals have the ability to
(02:30):
channel and fast track our way into our wise mind when we were
thinking about the problems thatwe face.
So that we're making compassionate and evidence based
decisions, but that have emotionin them, but they're not overly
swayed by the emotional content of what we're dealing with.
So. What's wrong with the way we
approach prison at the moment? I think the, the, the, what's
(02:52):
happening right now is that we are seeing a reluctance to
really engage in what the evidence is telling us and what
the wisdom of that evidence is telling us.
And we are drawn to knee jerk reactions.
And that is what's driving the, the agenda.
And I think that when you are looking after some of the most
(03:15):
challenging and difficult and damaged people in, in this
world, you need to take a step back from, from the rhetoric and
really look at what works and how we need to approach the,
the, the tricky and the wicked problems without sort of
entering into a sort of maelstrom of, of emotions.
What is the biggest example of where we are not following the
(03:38):
evidence? So I guess the topical issue is
what's happening currently around the Sentencing Council's
guidelines. I think that what's what's
occurred is that we've fixated on an incorrect and a
misinterpreted version of what those guidelines are trying to
enact or recommend. They're simply recommending that
(04:00):
we need to ask for a pre sentence report, ask For more
information about an individual's history, what may
have driven them to offending. It's a perfectly valid,
legitimate a question to ask when you're about to sentence
someone and. This is not just about the
colour of your skin, it's. Not just the colour of.
Social economics, correct gender, everything.
(04:22):
It's about everything. It's a it's good practice and
it's not trying to influence thejudiciary towards deciding what
to do and how to sentence someone.
It's just giving them all the information that they might find
relevant before making that decision.
And that's all that the recommendations are asking for.
But what's happened, which is usbeing in motion, mind if you, if
(04:44):
you take that theory forward, isthat we've fixated on the wrong
thing. We've fixated on the fact that
we're going to have a 2 tier justice system, for example,
which means that some individuals get a bit of a, a
bit of a touch and that's not true.
That's actually factually inaccurate.
All we're saying is, is that it's good practice for the
(05:06):
judiciary to have all the information that they could
possibly need so that they come to the right conclusion about
how someone needs to be dealt with or sentenced, etcetera.
But because this rhetoric has now become so charged, action is
being taken in a way that is is a misinterpretation of the
intention and and that's where we are going wrong.
(05:28):
I mean what what people on the other side of this say is that
we already have a 2 tier or a multi tiered criminal justice
system which discriminates against people from minorities
from the policing of crime rightthrough to sentencing.
Do you believe that's true, as someone who's been in the
system? Well, absolutely.
And I think that what what's ironic about this is that we
have had reports, the Lammy report, for example, has widely
(05:52):
been accepted by this government, by the previous
government, and it has acknowledged that there is
inherent biases in the criminal justice system which need to be
corrected. We also have the Equalities Act.
They're all basically trying to say that, you know, the way you
deal with difference is not by trying to treat everyone the
(06:13):
same, it's by having a nuanced approach towards it.
So I find it slightly baffling that we're in this place where
despite all of the the evidence that we have accepted, we're in
that place where we're focusing on an argument that's slightly
wrong headed. Is it simply because politics is
now driven by social media, which is in turn determined by
(06:37):
emotional responses to things? I I'm afraid so, yeah.
I think that this is what, and this is what feels slightly
dangerous and slightly risky because you're being LED into
alleyways that are meaningless while the real social problems,
the really challenging problems then become completely ignored.
It becomes a distraction. It becomes a noise in the
(06:58):
system. And while our attentions are
captivated by the the the the the titillation of that noise,
we're actually ignoring the realthings that we can do to make a
difference. A wider review going on at the
moment about sentencing by DavidGork, former Conservative
cabinet minister, and when that was announced it was widely
(07:18):
thought that this would lead to a massive reduction in the
number of people going to prison.
Do you think that's what we need?
Yes, absolutely. I think that when the review was
announced, we were Cocker hoop. We were excited, our sector was
really excited about it and we remain optimistic.
We want to see what the outcomesof this review are.
(07:39):
We have to actually, in fact, we're in place where the review
almost becomes really urgent andnecessary because it's what's
seen as the answer to trying to reduce the prison population.
So the capacity crisis in prisonis what's driven the Commission
of the sentencing review it at some level, that's what's
(08:00):
driving. And that's also wrong as well,
isn't it? The the the.
Fact that it's being driven by resources and numbers rather
than what's the right thing to do is also problematic.
It's problematic, but in some ways it's still welcome.
Sometimes you need a crisis to to kind of create the
opportunity for some sensible reform to take place.
(08:22):
And the sentencing review is probably probably been driven by
the crisis, but actually was needed anyway.
And why? Why do you think fewer people
need to go to prison having run one?
Having run one, I would say thatmy experience would suggest that
there are quite a proportion of people that really shouldn't be
in prison for whom the solution towards reform and
(08:43):
rehabilitation isn't prison. There are definitely people who
do need to be in prison, but fora percentage of people who have
drifted into prison because of problems that have occurred much
earlier on in their lives, what they need is some support and
rehabilitation and care at that earlier point so that they
(09:04):
didn't drift into custody in prison in the 1st.
And when you say they've drifted, lifted into prison, I
mean, isn't that language a bit of a problem?
They've broken the law. They've broken the codes and the
rules of society. Yes, I accept that.
I accept them. That's a fair challenge.
So drift, the way, the way I usethe word drifted is probably
that there are there've been some conditions that have
(09:24):
happened or there's some life events that have happened that
have made those kind of crossroads quite difficult for
people to navigate. So rather than choosing one
part, they've chosen another. And actually it isn't, it isn't
a caveat, it's not a catch all. So there are people who've had
really terrible poverty strickenlives, They've had terrible
childhoods, they've had trauma and they haven't committed
(09:47):
crimes and broken the law and ended in prison and great.
But there are others who haven'tfound their way out of those
problems and crises that they have probably gone into a life
of drug dependency. They've gone into a life full of
really poor relationships. And those kinds of life events
have meant that they have come into contact with the criminal
(10:09):
justice system. And those individuals, rather
than put them in prison where they lose any anchors that they
might have, they need to be supported sort of upstream.
So what? What portion do you think of the
prison population shouldn't be in there?
Well, I know that, you know thatthe numbers have been have been
kind of thrown about and I, I. Dodge is thrown about, but I
mean, James Simpson is the minister now.
(10:30):
Who was your chairman? You know, famously said that
he'd have let 1/3 a third out. Yeah, they shouldn't before he
became a minister. That's right.
He came on this program. Yes, I know.
Yeah. And said a third of them
shouldn't be in there and and that virtually no women should
be in prison. Yeah.
Well, you know, I don't know howhe did the maths and we've not
done the maths on this, but he'sprobably right.
I would say that, you know, whenI, I started my career working
(10:53):
in a women's prison, right, as apsychologist and I would say how
would estimate that, that, you know, majority of the women that
I saw, you know, who I did therapy with, I would say they
shouldn't have been in prison, you know, because if they were
supported and helped much earlier on, we would have
prevented them from going down this route.
And why? Are women different to men?
(11:15):
You know why? Why is the proportion so
different? I think that, you know, actually
it's not they're not different from men.
So what I would say based on my experience of working
psychologically with both men and women, the kinds of
experiences that young girls andyoung boys have are exactly the
same. How they manifest themselves in
(11:35):
adolescence or older life in terms of the crimes that they
might commit are quite different.
But women tend to their trauma stories lead them to certain
paths which we need to acknowledge need different kind
of support. Give me.
An example most. Of their most of their
offending, majority of women's offending is nonviolent
(11:58):
offending for a start, whereas men sadly are they're they're
more violent offending. So the also a lot of women are
in relationships where they are often coerced into offending.
They also have the added difficulty of having children
(12:19):
who they end up looking after. And when they do, there are
other pressures and strains on them.
And I think that that requires aslightly different approach.
So understanding the reasons whywomen commit crimes is really
important to understanding what the solutions for them need to
be. So that we need to have an
approach that's a bit more kind of nuance towards why someone is
(12:44):
doing what they're doing and what would help them.
So what? Was it like for you running
prisons when you think most of the people in there shouldn't be
in there? Really hard, really hard.
But what you do do, and this is the bit that I feel quite
passionate about, is that even amongst all of this craziness
that's happening in the world, you know, the stuff we were
talking about before, you still have to be the voice of reason
(13:09):
and compassion and have hope. Because unless there are people
like yourself and the vast majority of practitioners who
are actually there to do a good job, how do you actually try
and, you know, influence the system?
You know, so when you're there and you see that this is in this
is not right, or this is not fair or this is not just more
(13:30):
importantly, you still have to go, well, how do I make make a
difference? How do I influence that?
And the more senior you get in your career, the more influence
you might have, the more impact you can have on the lives of
those individuals. So did you.
Spend a lot of time as a prison governor thinking this is
unjust. I spent a lot of time in as a
(13:54):
prison governor being focused onwhat the outcomes for prisoners
needed to be. Because what happens when you
run prisons, You get quite quickly overwhelmed with the
sort of managerial tasks of running a prison.
And that takes you away from thecentral point of your existence.
And the central point of your existence is the way I saw it
(14:16):
was how do I make a difference to the lives of those, those
individuals that are here to have a potentially a reset while
they're in prison? Because I think that's the
purpose of prison. The purpose of prison, yes, it
is to punish, but it's equally about rehabilitation and
allowing someone to have that second chance.
And so when you are running a prison, you want to create an
(14:38):
environment where that that ideathrives, that you're creating
opportunities for people to thrive rather than decline.
And the stories I hear from my, my ex colleagues who are running
prisons is that it is absolutelyhorrendous for, for them as
people, as leaders who are trying to make sense of it and
(14:59):
try to make it safe and decent and nonviolent and prevent
people from, you know, killing themselves.
I mean, it's literally that awful.
And it's just a constant churn of crisis and trauma that staff
are facing and people in prison are facing every day that they
all their, their, their ambitionis about just getting through
(15:21):
the day. So forget.
About rehabilitation, let's justget through the day without
somebody killing themselves or somebody.
Else, yeah. And those, those those leaders
and those prison staff who managed to, despite all of that,
run safe, ordered, predictable regimes need to be applauded in
this current climate because it's it, it's awful.
(15:44):
So when the government talks about these brand new prisons
that are all marvellous and brilliant, are they?
I didn't visit HMP Mill site that opened last week, but my
colleague did and he said it wasa very impressive facility.
But you know, the true test comes when you fill it with
people. But also you've got to make sure
(16:04):
that the staff are able to cope with that, you know, and I think
that that's the tricky bit. You can have a shiny new
facility that has everything, but in the end, it's about human
to human relationships. And how how are how equipped our
staff to deal with that? Because these are some of the
most challenging people of our society.
(16:24):
And what and what? Is the reality about prison
officers and who they are, why they go into it and how good
they are it's. Difficult because when you have
people in prison that have that are very prison experienced,
who've been in prisons through their lives, for example, and
are older and and savvy, and then you've got very
(16:46):
inexperienced people working with them who've not really
built up enough life experience.And I'm not being ageist.
You'll get young people who are totally switched on and have the
emotional intelligence and the right skills, but you do have
others who've not really experienced anything that will
prepare them for what that is going to be like.
(17:06):
I think that that combination and that clash, that meeting of
those, those two things will be very, very challenging, Very
challenging. And So what you need to do as a
leader, which is one of the things that you do have to focus
on as a governor, not just what the outcomes of prisoners are,
but also how you're looking after your staff is what are you
(17:27):
doing to look after their well-being?
What are you looking at? What are you doing to their
welfare? How are you training them?
How are you equipping them with the right tools to be able to do
this very, very complicated task?
You know, prisons are a closed community prison officers role.
You know, you're one minute you're a nurse, next minute
you're a policeman, next minute you're a prison officer, next
(17:49):
minute you're a social worker. It's a highly skilled job, which
is pretty. Impossible to be in your wise
head. Correct.
As a as a prison officer, isn't it?
It's. Very, very difficult unless you
are a, you know, really creatinga culture that encourages wise
mind, you know, so you're encouraging a culture where
(18:09):
staff are exposed to reflection,reflective practice, who
understand about relational working, you know, all of those
things. They give you that wisdom.
I mean the. The trouble is that, I mean, you
know, the experience of this government is really
instructive. You know, when it first came in,
appointed James Timpson as the prison's minister, there was
this big sort of, you know, waveof, oh, wow, there's going to be
(18:30):
a new enlightened approach to prison.
And, you know, we'll be sending fewer people to prison and, you
know, things are going to change.
Then you get the riots, and there is this immediate demand
to lock them up and some pretty tough sentences.
(18:50):
And that kind of shows you the sort of the basic dilemma,
doesn't it? They're probably the same people
who were arguing for a more enlightened approach to prison,
suddenly saw these race rioters who they loathe and say, yeah,
lock them up, yeah. And that's the that's the issue.
You know, you, if you're, if you're coming from a principled
place, it has to be applied universally.
(19:12):
You can't pick and choose what you like and what's consistent
and what you don't like. So it's, it's a wicked problem.
It's a tricky thing to try and understand and, and, and at that
time and as, and for me especially, you know, as a woman
and as a woman of colour, it triggered me and it does trigger
you. And but that's the the
complexity of the job did did. Some of those sentences make you
(19:33):
wince. They didn't.
Make me wince, but it did. I really had to dig deep and try
and find that sort of small kernel of empathy to try and
understand what was driving someof the behaviour, not to condone
it, but to try and understand it.
Because without that empathy, without that compassion, you do
then join that brigade of lock them up and throw away the key.
(19:55):
And it's so easy to do that. You know, people in prison,
depending on the things that they have done, they push your
buttons. Whatever position you want to
take, they will push your buttons.
So it's even more important thatyou're able to stand back from
it. And that's part of your
training. That's the part of the training
that I think was most useful when I was training as a
(20:15):
psychologist. You have to stand back.
You have to suspend your judgement now given.
You say that the current crisis is really driven by numbers.
Is it is it the case that prisondoesn't work?
Or is it that prison on these resources can't work?
I think there are some people, as we said before, who do need
to be in prison, who need that time away from the people that
(20:39):
they have been hurting. But that's where the purpose of
prison becomes really important.So if you if you say that
whether prison works, prison will work.
If it's not overcrowded and beset by crises, when a prison
is well LED, when it's functioning well, when it has
purpose, when it has interventions, when it has
(21:01):
meaningful activity for people to engage with, then it does
work. But in the current state where
literally all someone's getting is perhaps 45 minutes of fresh
air a day with no predictabilityand you're spending the vast
majority of your time in a tiny cell with another cellmate and a
(21:22):
toilet. How can that do anything for you
for changing your mindset or rehabilitating you or helping
you? And if those that's the state
and that's the permanent state of prisons, then you no, it
doesn't work. And and so.
How do you feel now about what this government is likely to end
up doing? I mean, do you, do you still
feel optimistic? Well, you know, Christian, I'm
(21:43):
I'm a ridiculously optimistic person by nature and I feel that
I have to be optimistic because otherwise how else will you keep
going on but the decision? On the sentencing guidelines,
which he began talking about, doesn't suggest that that's the
direction of travel. It suggests that this government
is sort of caving into social media pressure and the pressure
(22:04):
from reform and the ConservativeParty and everything else which
is tough on law and order. It's.
Tough. It's been a tough week for us,
for all of us, and we're waitingto see what happens.
But I do think that, you know, the sentencing review is
imminent, hoping that there's going to be some sensible
recommendations in it that the government take up the thing
(22:25):
that can you see? In the current climate, a
government minister standing up and saying, you know what, we're
not going to send people to prison anymore.
But I. I think they don't have a choice
because also what will drive some of this is that they do
have to tackle the overcrowding crisis.
Because if they do nothing, if they don't take any of the
recommendations and in fact, saythat, you know, we're, we're,
we're, we're fine. And we're going to be, you know,
(22:47):
our our policies about sort of incarceration.
You're going to end up with the same problem that you had last
summer more. Barges and more.
Barges and more courts saying that they can't send people to
prison. I mean, it becomes, well, you
know, public safety grinds to a halt because you're then having
to say, don't arrest people, don't send people to court,
(23:08):
don't send people to prison after they've been convicted
because this is what happens. What do you?
Think the failure then has been in terms of winning public
opinion on the censors and guidelines cause ultimately
Robert Jenrick from the Tories has run a sort of very
aggressive campaign around 2 tier policing and two tier
justice. The government has essentially
caved in and buckled to it so. What's happened is, is that, and
(23:31):
this is they're focused on misinformation.
The misinformation is that this,these guidelines are going to
influence the sentence that people will get.
It's not the sentencing. Well, what's?
The point of them then it's. About making giving, doing a.
It's called a pre sentence report.
(23:52):
A pre sentence report is just good practice that gives the
judge some information off on the individual who's about to be
sentenced. So it tells them what might have
been the conditions that led to their offending, what might be
some of their back story. But it will.
Influence them then won't. It will influence the.
Well, that's isn't that the point?
(24:13):
It's. It's about informing them.
Ultimately, it's about the decision.
The independence of the judiciary still gets maintained.
It's good practice for people tohave as much information as
possible when you're making a decision.
I think that we would agree thatas a universal truth, if you're
making a decision, get as much information as you need and can
have because that will allow youto make a sensible decision.
(24:35):
And that's all the guidelines and they were guidelines.
Remember, they were just guidelines.
They were saying that in certaincases we recommend that you
request a pre sentence report. That's all the guidelines were
saying. But because the bit that has
been focused on is based on incorrect information, what it's
done is that it's kind of rabbleroused towards the wrong thing.
(24:58):
And what? Because So how do you?
You know, how, how do you stop that happening again when it's
going to be a much bigger issue of the numbers of people you're
sending to prison in the 1st place?
You know, whether people should be sent to prison at all, let
alone the guidelines that would govern it.
It's going to be a much bigger row, isn't it?
It? Will be a bigger row and you
have to, you know, you have to kind of, you know, roll your
(25:18):
sleeves up and and and, you know, go for it.
So what should? They do there that they didn't
because they've, you know, this one has been a failure from your
perspective, the other side havewon.
So how are you going to win the next one, which is a bigger
battle? Well, we just, you know, we just
have to keep chipping away at it.
It's a difficult question to answer, but you know, what do
PRT do? PRT is business is about
(25:39):
informing the, the, you know, whoever is operating within the
criminal justice sector about the facts and about the
evidence. And what we need to do is move
out of our echo chamber. We need to move out of the kind
of converted into the areas where, you know, people don't
necessarily know about the factsand have faith in the belief
(26:00):
that when people are armed with the facts and the evidence that
they do think slightly differently.
And I think the thing that we need to do is enter that space a
bit more. We need to start having
conversations with the public through whichever means that
feel important. And part of what I do when I do
media, my what my colleagues do,what what other others in the
(26:21):
sector do is that that's what we're trying to do.
We're trying to influence the the debate towards becoming more
sensible and and wiser if you. Think about your time as a
governor then. I mean, you're, you're not what
most people would picture as a prison governor, you know, on
all sorts of levels. You know, you're, you're, you're
(26:42):
a woman from an ethnic minority.You're a psychologist by
training. You're, you know, not mild
mannered, but you know, a normalperson.
Not a rofty tufty. Bloke how do people treat you?
I think that, you know, I get asked that a lot.
I think part of what happens when you go into prison work and
(27:07):
the world of prison, it's less about what you look like and
where you came from. It's about whether you have
walked the walk, whether you've done the tough jobs, whether
you've got credibility, What areyou like as a as a human being?
And those are the things that get you judged rather than, you
know, whether you look, you fit the mold.
(27:28):
And yeah, you know, people will double take and people will ask
you strange questions sometimes and all the rest of it.
But actually the credibility that you get is through the work
that you've done and your track record, as it were.
And how, how much did you interact with politicians then
in that role? Yeah, very.
Little So the first politician that I had any contact with was
(27:50):
when when I governed Liverpool, because it went so
catastrophically wrong. It got all the media attention
for the wrong reasons. I was probably the first prison
governor that was invited to a Select Committee and had to give
evidence and and at the time Rory Stewart was the prison's
minister and he was very kind ofhands on and wanted to speak to
(28:11):
the operational line as it was the first real contact I had.
But other than that or prior to that, very little What's?
Gone wrong at. Liverpool, practically
everything. So I think that, you know, there
were some of the real challengesthat are faced now that was
being faced then. And at the time there was it was
(28:32):
a crumbling Victorian building that was falling apart.
And it was ironically a capacitycrisis.
And what was being required of prisons up and down the country
was to be filled up and every space mattered.
And you had poor regime, you hada crumbling building, you had
(28:53):
frustrated prisoners, you had disenfranchised staff.
And the whole thing was just there was a sort of hardening of
the of of the of the view of what good looked like.
So after prisons very easily candeteriorate.
So if you don't have someone who's there kind of think that's
(29:15):
not right and someone in a leadership position saying
that's not right, they very comfortably default to just, you
know, being wrong. And I think over a period of
time, what I described at Liverpool was that there was
just a sense of learned helplessness.
There was a sort of blindness towhat was really going on.
(29:35):
And it then got inspected and itwas, it got caught with his
pants down. But it was probably something
that was happening up and down the country and everything that
was happening in Liverpool was driven by the fact that people
stopped seeing that it was in such a mess.
(29:55):
And so, you know, from from the state of the cells to the state
of how staff and prisoners dealtwith each other, from the
governance that, you know, looked at performance, it was
all just misfiring on all, all angles basically.
And, and what difference is it making now having a prisons
(30:15):
minister who comes from a prisonreforming background in James
Timpson, who had very strong views before he went into
government about what should happen to prisons?
He's not in charge of the sentencing review but he's in
charge of running prisons. So is he making any difference?
I think the biggest difference that it makes is that he knows
(30:36):
prisons, he's been in prisons, he has been operating within
prisons for decades, which is something that prison ministers
who've been given the portfolio never have, you know, so the
first time a prison minister visits a prison, it's the first
time they've ever entered a prison in their entire career.
And so that fundamental difference is quite important
(30:59):
because you get it. And I think what happens, you
know, you have the civil servicemachinery, you have the
political machinery, all of which is going to try and
influence you as a minister. And it's important then that as
a minister, you have, you know, what you're talking about,
you've seen it, you've walked the walk so that when you say,
when you see things or you hear things or you're being
(31:21):
influenced about things and don't feel right, you can say,
well, actually, that's not right.
Because as a minister, you're very dependent on the on, on
what you get briefed by. And you need to be critical of
that sometimes. And I think that the good thing
about James will be that he will, will know, you know, he,
he understands what good looks like.
(31:43):
He has had several conversationswith prison leaders.
He is, you know, he's not someone who's just come in and
done a high profile visit. He actually go whenever I met
him when I first was running prisons and he just goes off and
speaks to prisoners and speaks to staff.
You know, he won't have the red carpet treatment.
He, you know, so I think that hecomes from a place, an informed
(32:07):
place, and I think that's reallyimportant.
Is there any difference noticeable yet from?
My point of view from being in the third sector, yes, he's very
keen on engagement. He speaks to us, he's set up
many sort of round table events.He is keen to hear our voice and
(32:27):
I think that he's not made-up his mind about everything, which
is right, but he consults, he genuinely consults.
It's not a tick box exercise. He wants to know.
He has a curiosity and he he doesn't assume he knows it all.
So I have noticed a difference and, you know, I still have
colleagues in the civil servant service and they have noticed a
(32:49):
difference. I think that lack of formality
that he has allows people to relax, which means that they're
more likely to speak their truthand to.
Come back to your original desire for us to be more in our
wise mind. I mean how to how to do it?
Real tips so the. Tips, I guess, you know, it's
(33:10):
about knowing yourself quite a lot of self reflection, being
able to practice things like mindfulness and, you know, doing
those, those kind of good healthy things that you need to
do as a human being to be aware of what is triggering you and
what's setting you off and what are what's your where's your
(33:31):
chimp taking you, you know, and,and being aware of all of those
factors, but also engineering healthy habits in yourself.
But taking time out, you know, not, not just entering into the
thing, into the debate feet first and and and and then sort
of walking out what you need to do, do you think?
(33:52):
You should be on social media, which is obviously the thing
that drives the most emotional responses at the moment.
Oh. Social media is getting a
massive kicking and I think that, you know, it's slightly
scary and I don't quite know where we stand on it.
I think that we need it because you need a platform and you need
to be able to amplify your voice.
And, and also when you're talking about not being in your
(34:13):
echo chain, but you need to be able to reach out to people that
wouldn't normally kind of listento what you're saying.
So I think it's important, but Idon't know the answer to that
yet. But what I do know is that what
stops you from engaging with theprocess is not having any hope
and becoming cynical. And so despite the challenges
(34:34):
and despite the difficulties andthe conflicts, you need to keep
going on and fighting that fightaround bringing hope and
bringing reality and bringing anevidence base and sensible
debate into the whole discussion.
Because if you then start dialing down your own voice
because you've got fed up and and negative and frustrated with
(34:56):
it, then there then all those voices suddenly stop.
And then you've got no voice andthen you've got no debate.
You've got no one being in wise mind.
So you've got to keep going, right?
OK. So now thank you very much
indeed. Thank.
You thank you for. Sharing your way to change the
world. I hope you enjoyed listening to
that. You can watch all of these
interviews on the Channel 4 NewsYouTube channel.
Our producer is Sylvia Maresca and until next time, bye bye.
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