‘The gardens look lovely here and there is a lot of external refurbishment going on but us inside, we are broken’.

‘Someone tried to hang themselves 3 weeks ago and I am that someone and I haven’t had literally no mental health follow up since then’.

‘Trauma is a huge driver for offending but there is no access to counselling at all so we are coming out with all that same trauma’

‘I lost my baby at 14 weeks, I had no support, I had to go straight back to work’

‘Someone collapsed on the wing last week because they had overdosed on spice, we all got banged up as a collective punishment.’

The quotes above are a fraction of what I heard on visits to 3 prisons last week as part of User Voice’s vital research, consultations and Prison Councils work. Along with many awful and heartbreaking stories what struck me so viscerally, was the harm caused by just locking people up. It is futile for everyone to just contain people rather than support them to deal with the reasons they have been imprisoned. In prison people must have access to opportunities for personal reflection, growth and change, followed up by effective and sustainable resettlement.

We should be doing this to benefit all – victims, communities, to improve public safety – because it is both the right thing to do and because it is effective and smart justice. No longer can prisons be our default social service, because that model just doesn’t work for anyone, especially victims.

One of the issues that came over loud and clear on my visits were the universal insights about prison healthcare, how it can be so much worse in some prisons than in others. Our work with the NHS Health and Justice stream on Patient Public Voice is a major part of our insights work at present and has been for a number of years. The individual stories I heard were so shocking they made me doubt whether they could be real, but they were. Over the years we’ve heard so many instances of the same problems around healthcare and a host of other areas – often we will work with staff to resolve an issue in one prison and it will crop up again elsewhere, or in the same prison years later. This is really frustrating and difficult, and it makes it really vital for us to continue advocating for more lived experience influence in central policy and in monitoring the quality of services overall in prison as well as ensuring replication of what works. There is always more work to do, but there is so much wisdom from those in prisons and from those who have survived it, and it must be put to use.

I was really uplifted by the many ideas for improvements from those affected including suggestions for healthcare champions, healthcare on wings rather than centrally and trauma informed officer training, as well as peer support training. When it comes down to it people in prison are there for each other in ways that were utterly inspirational – such as peer support for terminally ill people, those who are bereaved and people with serious mental health problems and histories of abuse. There is also a definite need to share best practice amongst prisons, for example the ‘Pod’ intranet service in one prison I visited where people can securely access everything from healthcare appointments to the menu for the next week to prompts about courses available – that was really impressive.

It was also a privilege to hear the insight of those I spoke to in focus groups and to also see their courage in speaking honestly to Officers in User Voice Prison Council meetings. This is why we at User Voice do the work wo do. I heard Officers in a User Voice Prison Council meeting talking about behavioural science, extolling the benefits and its positive impacts. Council members then questioned whether if the staff are so wedded to behavioural science –why is it that if someone kicks off then everyone is punished? The council members were frank in describing how ineffective collective punishment regimes are for challenging individual behaviour. Often the person responsible doesn’t care if everyone is punished. The council then went on to offer solutions – firmly founded on evidence – suggesting that restorative processes, and conflict resolution could be used far more widely across the prison estate. We then discussed the potential consequences – would that be the state ‘being soft on or too nice to offenders?’ or would it be using effective, evidence-based techniques that may actually change behaviour? What came over clearly from the people I spoke to about this in all the prisons I visited was that incentives can work much better than collective punishment.

As I left my final prison visit, I spoke to a young woman inside who is doing a legal degree. She said that overcrowding has put a block on the major driver of Prison Officers’ motivation – feeling they can really make a difference. Officers I spoke to across the prisons agreed, saying they were struggling to know how they could help given the conditions they face in their job. They do what we they can, but the system isn’t fit for purpose because there are too many people locked up and the needs of those who are there are more overwhelming than ever.
We have to shine a light on this crisis, provide ministers with the evidence and lead them to the abiding conclusion that the system has to change – we must make the crisis point a tipping point. The situation calls for bold, creative and innovative solutions produced in partnership with all stakeholders, including people living and working in the system. The front line is where the knowledge and wisdom lies, lived experience must be at the heart of effective solutions.