The Secret Life of Prisons podcast Prison Radio Association

The Secret Life of Prisons is produced by a charity, the Prison Radio Association. To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 
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Despite having lots of time to spare during a sentence, people in prison face very many barriers to pursuing education, and particularly further education. Some people manage to overcome these barriers, and the Longford Trust is a key source of support.
In 2011 Chris Walters was arrested in Taiwan for a drugs offence. After seven years on bail, Chris received a prison sentence and was flown to the UK to serve out his sentence. His remarkable story brought him into contact with the Longford Trust. He now works on their fundraising team, and he's completing a law degree at the University of Edinburgh. 
Peter Stanford is the Director of the Longford Trust, who provide grants and mentorships to people in prison and after release to pursue higher education.
https://www.longfordtrust.org
Presenters:
Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association
Paula Harriott – Head of Prisoner Engagement, Prison Reform Trust
Producer: Andrew Wilkie
The Prison Radio Association runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.
Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

The Secret Life of Prisons is produced by a charity, the Prison Radio Association. To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 
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In the March 2024 budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said the government will seek to "prioritise proposals that deliver annual savings within five years". What does this mean for prisons and the criminal justice system, having to deal with rising numbers and facing increasingly complex challenges?
Grace Blakeley is a journalist and author. She previously sat on the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum which is responsible for policy development. Before that she worked for the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Grace Blakeley's new book Vulture Capitalism is available here.
Vicky Pryce was a civil service economist and is now Chief Economic Advisor for the Centre for Economics and Business Research. She’s a visiting professor at Birmingham City University and at King’s College London. Vicky served a prison sentence in 2013, where she saw first-hand how the prison system works, and she is now a Trustee of the charity Women in Prison and also Patron of the charity Working Chance, which is the UK’s only employment charity solely for women with convictions.
Presenters:
Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association
Paula Harriott – Head of Prisoner Engagement, Prison Reform Trust
Producer: Andrew Wilkie
The Prison Radio Association runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.
Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

The Secret Life of Prisons is produced by a charity, the Prison Radio Association. To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 
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In the months leading up to the next general election, the Secret Life of Prisons will be bringing you an occasional series featuring guests who have knowledge and insight into politics and the role criminal justice is likely to play as the major players fight for our votes.
We will be asking each guest to identify five things we should all be looking out for as the political campaigning ramps up.
Louisa James is our first guest. A political journalist and a member of the Westminster lobby, she is the Political Correspondent for ITV's Good Morning Britain.
Presenters:
Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association
Paula Harriott – Head of Prisoner Engagement, Prison Reform Trust
Producer: Andrew Wilkie
The Prison Radio Association runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.
Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

The Secret Life of Prisons is produced by a charity, the Prison Radio Association. To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 
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On Tuesday 7 May 2024 National Prison Radio, the world's first national radio station for people in prison, won an incredible SIX awards at the Radio Academy ARIAS, the 'Oscars' of the radio industry.
Phil and Paula take us into the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, to hang with the National Prison Radio team and soak up the atmosphere.
Ali Ali won Bronze for Best New Presenter. He's the host of Porridge, National Prison Radio's breakfast show. 
Lady Unchained is a poet, speaker, mentor and the host of Free Flow, the National Prison Radio show 'where we play the beat twice so you can get your bars right'. 
Marianne Garvey is the Managing Editor of National Prison Radio.
Arthur Hagues is Head of Content Innovation at the Prison Radio Association and producer of some of that award-winning content.
Listen to A Proposal For Resisting Darkness – a drama produced in partnership with Clean Break Theatre Company and nominee for Best Drama.
Full list of National Prison Radio winners:
Bronze for Takeover Tuesdays in the Best New Radio Show category
Bronze for Life After Prison in the Grassroots category
Bronze for Ali Ali in Best New Presenter
Silver for National Prison Radio’s Rock Show in the Best Music Entertainment Show category
Silver for Zak and Jules in the Best Speech Presenter category
Gold for Lady Unchained and her Free Flow show in Best Specialist Music.
Presenters:
Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association
Paula Harriott – Head of Prisoner Engagement, Prison Reform Trust
Producer: Andrew Wilkie
The Prison Radio Association runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.
Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

The Secret Life of Prisons is produced by a charity, the Prison Radio Association. To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 
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Under David Cameron's austerity government between 2010 and 2015, the number of prison officers in England and Wales fell by more than a quarter. Many experienced officers took voluntary redundancy. In the years since, the prison service has been recruiting new officers to fill the gaps – often young and inexperienced.
Gen Glaister was one of those recruits, joining the prison service in 2016, aged 23. She says it was an incredibly rewarding job and a privilege to do, but she left after less than two years. She's written a memoir of her time in the prison service called The Prison Officer: The Inside Story of Life Behind Bars. She is determined to change the public's approach to people in prison, and to get the UK excited about justice reform.
Nathan Parker is a mentor and trainer of prison officers, through his work with the Rees Foundation. He was 19 when he was sent to prison for four years, around the same time Gen was working the landings. He was fully aware of how young many of the prison officers were.
The Prison Officer by Gen Glaister is available to order here.
Find out more about the Rees Foundation.
Presenters:
Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association
Paula Harriott – Head of Prisoner Engagement, Prison Reform Trust
Producer: Andrew Wilkie
The Prison Radio Association runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.
Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

The Secret Life of Prisons is produced by a charity, the Prison Radio Association. To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 
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Charlie Taylor is His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. His role is to report back to the government on conditions in prisons across England and Wales. While his team encounters many serious problems in prisons on their travels (see our recent episode 'Urgent Notification'), they also see examples of prisons whose culture creates calmness and postiive engagement.
These prisons tend to have lower levels of violence and are safer, more humane environments. 
What can we learn from these prisons?
HM Inspectorate of Prisons has recently published a report, 'Improving Behaviour in Prisons', asking this very question.
Marc Conway contributed to the report. He is a criminal justice consultant through his organisation Fair Justice. He spent many years in and out of prison, encountering the very good and the very bad along the way. He was released for the final time in 2018.
Read the report by HM Chief Inspector of prisons here.
Presenters:
Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association
Paula Harriott – Head of Prisoner Engagement, Prison Reform Trust
Producer: Andrew Wilkie
The Prison Radio Association runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.
Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760