Media Storm - S1E5 Criminal Justice: Does prison work? - with The Secret Barrister and Paula Harriott

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

Media Storm presented by Mathilda Mallinson and Helena Wadia Read the transcript: https://mediastormpodcast.com/2022/02/07/1-5-criminal-justice-does-prison-work-with-the-secret-barrister-and-paula-harriott/ Plans to lock up 20,000 new prisoners, a Home Secretary who wants criminals to “literally feel terror”, and the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe… This is the UK’s ‘tough on crime’ mantle, and a political battleground fought all over the world. Media outlets vilify ‘thugs’ and ‘terrorists’ while politicians auction for the ‘law and order’ vote. But with no clear correlation between incarceration and crime rates, are we keeping people safe, or just keeping them scared? This week, your hosts sit down with The Secret Barrister and former prisoner Paula Harriott to talk all things crime - from prisons to Prince Andrew - after heading behind bars to answer one simple question: does prison work? Your hosts Mathilda Mallinson @mathildamall Helena Wada @helenawadia Your Guests The Secret Barrister @barristersecret https://thesecretbarrister.com/ Paula Harriott @paula_harriott https://weareagenda.org/board/paula-harriott-2/  Sources Priti Patel op-ed https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7316055/I-want-criminals-terrified-says-Priti-Patel-Home-Secretary-restore-confidence-Britain.html European incarceration rates: https://www.statista.com/statistics/957501/incarceration-rate-in-europe/  UK incarceration rate: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04334/  Policy: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05646/SN05646.pdf  Prison population projections: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1035682/Prison_Population_Projections_2021_to_2026.pdf  Ofsted review of prison education: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/launching-our-prison-education-review Police, Crimes, Sentencing and Courts Bill: Mental health in prisons: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/7455/documents/78054/default/ 1976 Bail Act in action: https://howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/APPG-For-their-own-protection-FINAL.pdf  Domestic abuse in UK prisons: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/female-offender-strategy  Get in touch Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/mediastormpod or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mediastormpod or Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@mediastormpod like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MediaStormPod send us an email [e-mail] check out our website https://mediastormpodcast.com Music by Samfire @soundofsamfire. Artwork by Simba Baylon @simbalenciaga. Prison sounds from Cody Lachey @ExOffenderCodyy. Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Helena, what do you know about prisons in the UK? I've read England and Wales lock up more people than any European country except for Poland. Is that true? Technically, yes. If we look at a per capita comparison, England and Wales lock up three times as much of our population as the Netherlands and Norway and over twice as much of our population as Germany does. I actually remember a Dutch case a couple years ago where judges refused to extradite a suspected drug smuggler to the UK, because they ruled that sending someone to a British prison was illegal under international

human rights law. Yeah, that happened. Which points to one of the issues with our prison population, actually, because we're overcapacity. So what's being done? Overall, the government has pledged four billion pounds, and that's to build 18,000 new prison places, including four brand new sparkly prisons. So that should relieve some of the capacity problems. that we're seeing? Well, that's the catch. The government also projects an increase in our prison population. By 2026, we're expected to have 98,500 prisoners in England and Wales. But how many do we have today? Around 79,000. Okay, wait, but 98,500 minus 79,000. Now, I'm not the biggest maths quiz in the world, but I'm pretty sure that's more than 18,000.

That is correct. So we're building 18,000 new prison spaces, but we'll be locking up more than 18,000 new people. Correct. Where are all these new criminals supposed to be coming from? Okay, well, Taffa sentencing, anyone who knocks over a statue for 10 years behind bars, that kind of stuff. Also, the government puts it down to their plans

to recruit 23,000 new police officers, which is another part of their whole tough on crime agenda. I thought the whole rationale for being tough on crime was deterrence, but evidently they don't think that extra police officers and tougher sentences will be very good at deterring crime if it will result in tens of thousands more people being locked up. Right? So I think the next question to ask then is, does prison work? Good question. I'm heading behind bars, hearing from people who've spent time inside, both those locked up and those holding the key,

to ask whether they think prison worked. And I'll see you back in the studio with some very special guests to discuss everything around this media storm. I am your president of law and order. New sentencing laws will see that the most serious offenders, the gangs, the drug barrens, the thugs, the terrorists.

I will be tough on crime. Why is this government determined to lock up chipses and travelers? Have capital punishment that would act as a deterrent. Welcome to media store. a news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Mallinson and I'm Helena Wadiah. This week's investigation, criminal justice, does prison work?

Between the bars, the smell of Welsh grass, freedom, water flowing in the deep Welsh valley, the taste of tears, perfection in the palm of my hand. moments later, melting. Haiku, 17th century Japanese poetry, and for David Breakspeer, the stepping stone from decades of crime to the hope of a clean future. I mean, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Nine words. Do you know what I mean?

The power of words is just incredible. So mine is just, well, it speaks to itself, really. I am flying as a bear skating on the beach. It's about freedom's a state of mind. And that's what the ability to be able to read enables, freedom in your mind. It's a lot better than psychoactive substances for a night out, that's for sure. I'd rather write haiku than smoke a spice joint. David was a so-called revolving door inmate.

People stuck in a cycle of prison and crime. Reoffenders. Now four and a half years clean, he's primed to tell us why people fall through the cracks of custodial justice. Crime isn't as cut, cut and dry as you think. There's a story behind it. Not everyone going through the court system are criminals. They're just someone that may have made one single mistake because he was struggling somewhere else.

He may have had a gambling addiction or a drug addiction. Those are the issues that we need to attack. We know people commit crimes. It's the why people commit crimes that's important. Really, it just takes it from the government, from society not involved that are looking from the outside in, and for the media, just have a bit of empathy. Now, I only care about the criminal justice system

because, well, I suppose one aspect I grew up in it. It was part of my life for nearly four decades. Where in your life, if you had to, would you pinpoint your downfall into crime? I think being excluded from school, that would be somewhere that I could point my finger and say that I've got challenged, label being challenging and disruptive.

What the teachers didn't know or didn't want to know, was that my labelled challenging and disruptive behaviour was actually cries for help. You've got teenagers still trying to get their own identity and they're being told that they're not wanted. It's as if the education system is there to filter out the wheat and the criminal justice system is there to pick up the chaff. But if that happens, it should be a second chance

for the system to get it right for the individual. Small pockets of excellence exist in prison education. to quote the 2021 Ofsted Review, but the overall quality remains extremely poor, it says, with the current government making little improvement. Prison isn't a rehabilitative environment. Yeah, prison makes people bad. Once someone becomes trapped within the revolving door,

it takes around eight or nine sentences for them to be able to go, do you know what I feel I'm sick at this now? And that's kind of what happened to me. And ironically, it took me nine, coincidentally, not ironically. It's criminogenic. you may go in as a shoplifter and then your fifth sentence you're like credit card fraud because of what you've learned in prison and look you've got people with really good intentions

because they know the lack of options and opportunities that are out there give you a phone number of phone yeah i'll give my mate a call and then sort you out and the next thing you know you're in for shoplifting you've been grafting class A drugs and that's not dramatic it happens and it happens every day in prison. I don't know any different because no one tells me. All they tell me is what's wrong with me. No one asks me, what can I do? What am I good at? The whole prison journey can be a traumatic experience. At the end, you can spit out someone that's going to be traumatized. Okay, welcome to Elthbury. Welcome to Elthbury. So you arrive at the prison. The journey in a sweatbox alone is a journey and a half if you've never been on a sweat box. Not everyone around

you might be nice, could be put in the fear of God up. It is quite humorous, but it can't be humorous for that person that's sitting in that little box going to prison for the first time. That must be a scary situation. So yeah, you've got all that to go through. Before you even arrive, you then get processed through the gate, it's known as a sterile area. They will search you, strip search you. But then they start asking questions about, you feel suicidal and things like that. There needs to be a more trauma-informed approach and I think a lot more understanding

of neurodivergent conditions and also issues around mental health. It's true that we have no clear picture of the extent of mental health in prison. The Ministry of Justice admits to this. The Centre for Mental Health recently summarised the existing research on mental health in prison.

All of this data is at least five years old. They found 70% of prisoners met the criteria for two or more mental health conditions and vulnerabilities. Only 10% of prisoners are recorded for receiving treatment. Perhaps more shockingly, mentally ill people are sometimes put in prison simply because there is no community care available. The 1976 Bail Act enables courts to imprison adults for, quote, their own protection, with no trial, no time limit, and no medical opinion.

These remands are most often used. used for women. In 2010, I received a diagnosis of a number of personality disorders and that for me was when I kind of knew why, why I was doing what I was doing and what I was doing wrong. And I think my prisons are prevalent with undiagnosed conditions. If that condition is undiagnosed, the individual could be like I was years ago, labelled as challenging and disruptive, which would affect their progress throughout their sentence. It will affect what they can and can't do. They could end up spending a lot I'll dime down the segregation unit because of their challenging and disruptive behaviour, especially with the latest figures about the length of sentences increasing.

David is referring to new sentencing laws. I'll take a deep breath and rattle some off. The government's police crime sentencing in courts bill doubles maximum sentences for emergency worker assaults, introduces life sentences for dangerous strivers, harsher sentences for children and teens who commit murder, and 10-year maximum sentences for vandalising a memorial. That's 10 years up from three months. It also delays and sometimes halts early release,

reduces judges' freedoms to deliver light sentences, illegalises elements of gypsy and traveller lifestyle and peaceful protests, while the nationality and borders bill criminalises people coming to the UK to seek asylum. All of this means more prisoners, locked up for longer. David, what is the key to rehabilitation, to turning people away from crime? For me, rehabilitation is an attitude. And the process to achieve that, how I'd done that, was through education. David started teaching fellow prisoners how to read.

I had value, I had purpose. I was somebody, and I felt good about myself. A lot of issues come down to self-worth and confidence and how people feel about themselves. And I spent a lot of years being told I was this, that and the other, and labelled with this, that and the other. And all of a sudden, I'm finding out for people who I've got so much more in common with, maybe I'm not that bad.

One person who fell into that cycle of crime after her first short-term sentence is Shelley, who's asked to be identified by her first name only. From petty crime when she was 14, she most recently received a five-year sentence for conspiracy to import Class A drugs. It's my son's birthday today, so I'm running around trying to blow up balloons and...

Power mum. If you hear a washing machine in the background, that's why. Like David, Shelley tries to... Shelly traces her troubles back to childhood. I was a victim of sexual assault when I was 13 years old. I hid it from my mum. It led to a huge relationship breakdown between me and her, and I probably found comfort with the wrong people on the street.

I'm curious, did prison help you in any way? For me personally, it wasn't the actual prison. It was the fact of having the family element. or women that have been through what I've been through. I felt at home and I felt understood for the first time. That's all it is. Sometimes people just need a little bit of love. You know, sometimes people need a reason to go on.

Sometimes people need a reason to believe that they are of value to somebody. It definitely came from the community. It didn't come from the institution itself. You can go to the door at the office for something. at the office for something and be told to fuck off and have the door slammed in your face before you even opened your mouth and asked anything. I was told by an officer that I'd be back.

We're going to see you again. And I did go back. I went in there to do motivational speaking at an enrichment day. How about those not stuck in a cycle who leave prison and never come back? I was sent to a prison in July 2015 for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

Meet Lisa Brooks. Honestly, I think the crime and reoffending rates are so high because there's a massive divide between the rich and the poor. I feel like the cost of living in Britain overrides the wages. I mean, I'm on a good wage, but I still struggle. I just think the government needs to do more, you know, raise the wages, make it worth people working because I'm going to tell you straight, Matilda, right about now, I just feel like I work to pay the bills. I don't have no enjoyment. And if I do have enjoyment, it's then getting myself into more money problem. where that could cause me to end up doing what I did before,

to go do something stupid. Why do people in Britain feel the need to drown themselves in so much drink and drugs? Because they're not happy. They're not living, they're just living to survive. Lisa has only been convicted once. She's been out for two years and has not re-offended. Statistically, she's a measure of the success of prisons, but actually ask her, and you'll get a different story.

The government is not getting to the root. cause of the problems. The problems are in society and all they're actually doing is creating further problems because these people are then coming out of jail with more psychological issues than they already had. From the things they've seen in jail, from being confined, you know, in a little four by four space, 23 hours a day, do they think that's going to rehabilitate somebody? I just think the whole tough on crime thing is just a way of covering up the real problem. You know, building more prisons. Are you crazy? Like, what do you want for half of the country to be in jail. The truth is they don't know what to do with all the offenders in prison. It's just

shove them all in one space and contain them. There's no actual help. Yeah, okay, we get put on these stupid courses, but the courses don't help. I went on courses in there and I was just sitting there like, but I didn't commit this crime because of this or that or that. I did it because I needed help. So actually that's interesting. I haven't had that perspective before. The courses on offer don't cater to people who have committed crimes out of economic necessity. I think that domestic violence one helped me a little bit but other than that, no. Do you mind me asking, does that mean that you're a survivor of domestic violence?

Yes, I am. Do you find it very common with women in prison? Yeah, I met loads of women in there who were in jail because of a man because they were coerced into something. You know, I met a few girls who stabbed the partners, some died, some didn't. But that was down to suffering years of domestic violence. You know, clearly the people. police aren't doing the job right because the women wouldn't have ended up in prison if they'd have

intervened. There's no illusion about the fact that domestic abuse survivors are disproportionately represented in the female prison population. It's two and three by the government's own data. Drugs are another problem that our prison system completely fails to address. I was in New Old prison for two years in Wakefield. There was one girl who came in and out 11 times in that space of two years. These girls, you know, the ones that were re-offending, they were drug addicts. When you're sending a drug addict out homeless, telling them, oh, he is a tent, and you're a woman as well. So a woman's expected to go live in a tent. How dangerous is that, right? I mean, what are they going to do? Go live with creepy old guys, just to have a roof over the head,

to have sex with that guy, just so they've got some money. And in the end, it gets too much, and they'd end up doing something on purpose to come back to prison. It's so sad, because they've got out. They have kids and they've gone back to drugs. You're also a mother. How difficult was that in terms of going to prison? The judge wouldn't even let me go home and say bye to my kids. They reminded me there and then when I were found guilty. And that was so hard. It was awful. I didn't speak to my kids for 10 days. When that judge sentenced me, he did not consider my children. My barrister said, please go easy on the sentencing due to her children. And he turned around and said,

that I should have thought about my children before I committed the crime. Well, I was thinking about my children when I committed the crime. It was to pay bills, it was to get food in the house, so my kids would be okay. Being away from my children was the worst. I had to learn to block them out in order to get by. They're the only thing that stopped me from doing so much stupid, you know, because I thought I've already messed up the lives. So if I do this, you know, if I take my life, then how selfish of me would that be?

For Lisa, the toll of imprisonment was almost too much. match. They ask how you're feeling when you first come in. I was suicidal and what they did was they just shoved me in a safe cell, checked on me every hour by turning the light on and opening the flap. Ultimately, I just got banged in a cell anyway. I think the government, they've got no idea how it is for us down here on the ground. While they're living their lavish lifestyles, they don't have to worry about money, but people like me do. We'll be returning to Lisa and Shelley's cases in a later episode to look at one of the most racialized areas of criminal justice, the war on drugs, and we'll have David Lammy on to speak about his seminal investigation.

But for now, I want to focus on prisons, whether they cure or contribute to crime. The latter case was made to me down the phone by a prisoner who wished to stay anonymous. He's been in and out of prison four times. His latest sentence, 14 years. the system can be corrupt if you see wrongdoing by governors or by screws prison officers you know if you feel you've been treated unjustly by the system your first fault is to fight fire with fire if they're going to treat you bad if they're going to look down on you and treat you bad you know what I mean you're going to react in a similar way you're trying to kick against the system you can't win

you know you look horns it's easy to stay in that frame of mind when you're inside I'm not saying all prison officers are bad, you know what I mean, and all governors are bad and this and that. But they tend to be very negative places. The issue he keeps circling back to is the staff, prison officers. So I'm heading to meet one. John Sampson served in HMP-P Pentonville during the pandemic and now runs support courses inside prisons. Hi, Mr. Hi, John. Are you got a parcel?

I was a prison officer in HMP Pentonville from the summer of 2018 until the start of this year, so for about two and a half years. Ultimately, I became a prison officer because I wanted to work with people and try and help people get to a better place. Do you think that that attitude survives many years working as a prison officer? There are a significant minority where it does survive, and I was always in awe of those people. That is something that I saw a lot when I was there. People who came with good intentions and through their experience of working there really lost themselves in that job.

Can you explain why that happens? You're fundamentally doing an inhumane job but trying to do it in a humane way. You're caging people effectively. That's going to throw up a wide range of reactions, emotions. So on a daily basis, you know, I would have been verbally abused, threatened with violence, on occasion, being the victim of violence, seeing a lot of violence around me, seeing a lot of people inflict violence on

themselves, if you don't have a strong belief system, you lose yourself in that role and you become hardened and you become abusive yourself. And do you think then that it is a necessity of the job, or do you see it as something that should be improved on. I don't think you can totally escape the structure of prison, but environmentally I was working in a space that was just not fit for purpose, overcrowded, decrepit Victorian prison that was built in the 1840s to house 300 men. And how many did it house?

And it now houses 1,300. This is Pentonville, which was explicitly designed to remove people's identity I studied history and I remember the Victorian design of Pentonville was thought out to basically maximise psychological torture I mean I don't think we've gone that far

from that it is not fit for people to live in so a lot of the people who we've spoken to as well have fallen into crime if not as a result of but with the influence of significant trauma, do you feel that officers are adequately trained to take that trauma into account? I don't think trauma is actually something that's particularly spoken about amongst officers.

We would just put out down as like really challenging behaviour. There can be this process of actually you being transferred some of their trauma, a vicarious trauma process. Self-harm is a massive thing in prison. As an officer, you're the first responder to that situation. That is a traumatic experience. You're sort of just gradually accumulating this vicarious trauma as you move through your career. People get burnt out and people leave the job.

I guess I left the job and I got burnt out. Are there systems in place to support officers with that trauma? Do you have access to counselling? Yeah, so there are systems in place. What I would say is there's a culture of sort of aversion to seeking help. going to get counsel or going to get support after you've experienced something difficult might be perceived as a weakness or a vulnerability that you shouldn't be showing in a place like prison. I've struggled to get officers to speak on the record this candidly about what goes on in prison.

I'm wondering whether you can shed any light as to why there is so little journalistic access to this area, which really should be one of the most transparent, you know, justice should be. one of the most transparent sectors of a democratic society. We're literally not allowed to. What happens then is the only spokesperson for prison officers is the union, the Prison Officers Association, which I believe does damage to the experience

of prison officers as a collective. Taking the pandemic as an example, the Prison Officers Association came out with this narrative that the pandemic is great for prisons, it's improved safety, mental health, and self-harm has gone down, couldn't have been further from the truth. No one's experience of the pandemic on either side of the door was positive. Why do you think the POA was putting out such a positive message if that wasn't reflecting

reality? In the pandemic, at its worst, we were running a regime where guys were getting out of their cells for 30 minutes every two days, which meant that they couldn't get into any fights. Staff assaults had gone down. It's because no one was coming out of their cells. No one could assault staff. It was a very naive understanding of what was going on in prisons. Prison officers will be doing their best

when the prisoners that they work with are doing their best. That is just a fact. Do you think that our tough on crime politics is the right direction? I mean, I can say categorically no. Prisons are so overcrowded. If I was in charge tomorrow, I would half the prison population

knock down all of the Victorian prisons that are no longer fit for purpose. I'm pro-building new prisons. I'm not pro-building new prisons and keeping old prisons open. Will we just sort of dig down further into a pit of our own despair or are we going to be like

maybe we need to come out of the pit and actually build something new? Build back better. Build back better. Of course, not all prison officers report having the same perception. Does not a hall has left to cede might surprise me.

I also spoke to Jare O'Don. wire, a seasoned prison guard from Northern Ireland who paints a picture of old school camaraderie. I suppose it wouldn't be very different from a relationship you'd have with somebody on the outside. A lot of fellas come in, they just want to do their time and go back out to their families. We're the same. We went to go in at 8 o'clock in the morning, do our time, and come back out to our family's here to talk at night. So it's in all our interests. You scratch my back and I'll expect yours and we'll get on just fine, you know. I am actually interested whether you think other officers have the same approach. Because what I've heard from some people who've been inside is that at least some officers will take the liberty to personally put them down.

Is that something that you have witnessed? No, I have to say no, no, and I wouldn't agree with that state. No, absolutely not. But he has felt pressure from the press and public to make life in prison difficult. Articles describing prisons as holiday camps, criticizing any kind of lifestyle perks afforded to people. serving criminal sentences. These are common. And Jared doesn't agree. You know, you see in paper people complaining

about how do they cancel that. Like, the punishment is the loss of their liberty. Like, when they come into us, it's not our job to punish them then. They have been punished by the judiciary. Through the sun man, people tied up in chains and outbreaking bricks. The loss of their liberty, that's their punishment.

And that's a huge thing. Like, you have the option, go for a walk, meet your friend. They don't have those options. I don't know if people realize the enormity of that. Does that mean you would be in favour of actually improving living conditions in prisons? All the staff would be hugely in favour of improvements because the better their living conditions obviously means we have better working conditions.

It's not just prison of welfare that's a concern. Like John, Jere says the job takes its toll. But for that, he's found a remedy. The Cork prison officer's male voice choir was set up in 1989. A group of lads came together and they was just seen. if a member of staff had passed away, they would sing at the funeral. After all, I really love you.

Music is hugely important, you know, and singing and participation and comradeship as well, you know. I have to stop and think at times and say, whoa, it really means an awful lot to me, you know, because I'm surprised myself at how much it means to me, you know. And actually, it's one of the best things I've ever done. I'll be the first to tell you I'm not bringing revelations. A lot of this is old news.

And yet, is it actually reflected in how we talk about crime, in our politics, in our press? Are we just giving victims of crime the priority they deserve? Or are we using victims as a fig leaf to win votes? If the evidence says one thing, but the voters want another, where is that discrepancy coming? from. That brings us on to part two of the podcast. Thanks for sticking around. Welcome back to the studio where we'll discuss all the cheerful headlines on marginalised, ostracized and systematically silenced communities. Our first guest this week is actually being

re-voiced by an actor because they are famous for their secret identity. This best-selling author exposes corruption, cracks and confusions in their otherwise impermeable industry. No, it's not Banksy. It's the secret barrister. Welcome, gender, non-specific voice of the secret barrister. Hi, I'm the secret barrister. Our second guest is the head of prisoner involvement at the Prison Reform Trust, where she leads the integration of lived experience voices into much-needed campaigns for change. Please welcome Paula Harriet. Hello, everybody. So, in this investigation, it sounds like a lot of the people when going through the criminal justice system have felt unheard, misunderstood, lost and confused. Paula, in your experience, would you say that

this is the norm? I think so, yeah. In that introduction to me, what you didn't say was that I'm actually a former prisoner myself. So the lived experience of being in prison and also being featured in the sun. The headline, and I'll never forget it, is drug lag let out to work in drugs rife Hansworth and a picture of me that made me look like hardcore criminal. It was a really scary experience to be outed in the sun. I have been to prison. I've accepted the punishment. I've changed my life and I cannot be held ransom by the press. I understand there's like interest in people's criminal convictions and they relate to risk and personal safety. and public safety.

And I genuinely do understand that. But there's like disclosure for public protection. And there's disclosure for voyeurism. This thing we have, this obsession we have with painted villains, the drama of it, like the theatrics of it, or someone described the legal system as a theatre show. And that kind of came up a lot in my interviews where people just felt really lost in the system,

completely stripped of agency. Secret barrister, you've written a lot about the opacity of the system. in these terms. In what way do you think that the legal system is a theatre show? I think the justice system and those of us in it can do a very good job of making it feel like a theatre show and that's the problem. We clothe ourselves in black gowns and 17th century horsehair wigs and quote Victorian legislation and let Latin trip off our tongues when we're making legal arguments. It's a product of tradition which as a baby lawyer we are taught to imbibe and replicate but which immediately creates a barrier between us, the insiders and anybody else trying to

follow criminal justice in action. If you make people feel like outsiders, you can't be surprised if people, when the case goes against them, are then left with a feeling that justice has not been done. Is it all technicalities or is there an active inequality in how our legal system operates? I think there are some gross inequalities. As a defendant, you're already frightened. And if you're using legal aid, you don't have any recognition of whether or not your barrister or your solicitor or the quality of your advice is any good. There isn't a trip advisor for the quality of the legal representation that you're allocated. So how do you know, having worked in the sector for many, many years? I recognise that there is something called justice for the rich and less justice for

the poor. And that's about the quality of advice that you can buy and the quality of information that you can have access to. That's not doing down legal aid barristers and solicitors because I, I meet many that are fabulous and committed and professional and values driven. But there are some that are demoralised and underpaid, overworked. Your life is in their hands. Over recent years, there's been a steady creep in the erosion of individual rights and liberties across the legal landscape. The removal of legal aid from vast swathes of the population means that if you're accused of a crime or find yourself unlawfully injured or unfairly dismissed from your job, you will likely have to fund legal proceedings yourself, which many people simply cannot

afford to do. In criminal law, the situation is particularly egregious. See, it's words like that, disconnect ordinary working class people. We have to check if we understand what that means. And they would just flounder and feel like, how is this person acting in my best interest by speaking in a way and in a language that doesn't represent me? The language is the language of class, isn't it? This isn't an attack on people using complex language to describe complex issues. It's not. But it has to be recognised that you have to become accessible in your use of language in order to promote equity and equality within the criminal justice system.

I'm now dying to know what's so egregious. In criminal law, the situation is particularly egregious, as you don't choose whether or not to engage with the criminal courts. And cuts to legal aid mean that people are facing years, decades of their lives in prison, and are forced to either represent themselves in court against the most experienced prosecutors in the country or have to remortgage their homes to fund private representation. The government changed the law so that if you're acquitted, i.e. found not guilty, you will not be reimbursed your full legal fees, meaning you can be wrongly accused and find

yourself bankrupted trying to clear your name. And just on that point, compensation for victims as well. Do you remember at the London Bridge attack at Fishmongers Hall? And it was former prisoners. One of them was my colleague at work, former prisoners who helped to detain the guy that had killed both Jack and Saskia. They refused victims' compensation because they had criminal records. So people with criminal records can never claim compensation as a victim of crime.

That's so egregious. Is that agree? What's the word? Yeah, that is pretty egregious. A lot of this attack on the rights of people on the wrong end of the criminal justice system is part of the government's tough on crime policy agenda? I'd like it to be tough on the causes of crime. I understand about punishment, yeah?

Like anybody who's a victim has a sense of the requirement to visualize and to see justice. So I understand about the need for justice. But what was the purpose of imprisonment? What was seeking to achieve by doing that? When I was in prison, there's not one woman that I really met in that system. who when I listened to the back story, I thought, oh my God, I really get it, how you've got you.

Before I went to prison, there was about like six, seven services that I was having connection with, you know. I was a drug user, you know, my husband smoke crack, domestic violence, social services, mental health issues. All these different services coming to me trying to stop what was the inevitable dissent to the criminal justice to prison. And when I get the eight-year sentence, suddenly it was all about me. None of those services sit back and go, okay, what did we do that failed her? There's such a need for us to have a sophisticated conversation about this, that's less emotional, that really deconstructs why we have imprisonment in the backdrop of our mind, like some Victorians, yeah?

I think we definitely want to talk about how the media is complicit in kind of playing up that tough on crime narrative. You know, the government tells us that crime is on the rise and the media tells us that prisons are the answer because I'm not sure that there is a mainstream media outlet that doesn't express over support for prisons. There are definitely opinion pieces and there are definitely less mainstream outlets

that add nuance to the conversation. But if we're looking mainstream, there can be seen to be an overemphasized apparent risk that all prisoners pose to society. We're being told that there are dangers all around us and then we as a public become scared and then therefore prison is quite an unproblematic solution.

Secret Barrister, I want to know how does the phrase tough on crime make you feel? Tough on crime politics makes my heart sink. Not just because I'm a lily-livered liberal who doesn't think anybody should go to prison, although just on that note we do send far too many people to prison and that's for a later discussion. But because tough on crime does not actually mean tough on crime.

There's no evidence to suggest to take a recent high-profile example that increasing the maximum sentence for assaulting an emergency worker from one year to two years is going to make a single emergency worker any safer. Shock. And I can tell you, because I prosecuted and defended a lot of these people, people do not sit at home weighing up the pros and cons of assaulting a nurse, balancing the sadistic pleasure against the likely punishment a court would impose. These offences are invariably spontaneous, wholly unplanned and arise out of a complex combination of factors relating to mental, health, alcohol and drug use, ingrained behavioural problems and environmental stresses, none of which are solved by slapping an extra two months on somebody's prison sentence. Actually just seems so obvious, wouldn't you put it like that? Do you think the media is complicit in flaring up that tough on crime narrative?

The media undoubtedly plays a role in flaring this up. A day doesn't pass without a story railing against a soft judge, letting a thug or a lout walk free from court. The news reports rarely include the context that you need to evaluate. the rightness or wrongness of the sentence, such as the fact that the defendant is a carer for a seriously disabled child, or that they have for the first time in a decade obtained a job and a house and have remained out of trouble for three years since the offence was committed

and the court doesn't want to risk destabilizing them. Rage generates more clicks. Yeah, I do think the language of prison reporting is oversimplified, especially hearing from the investigation, Matilda, the people you spoke to, how each case had so many nuances and intersections, but as Secretarvarez had just said, I don't think we would have ever heard those nuances or intersections in the mainstream media.

No, Paula just got drug lag. Was that it? Drug lag. Drug lag. Not like mum of five who had a really complex life. Othering people in the press is a tactic that we don't, unless it affects us personally, we don't pick up on. Because the language is cementing a framework of divest.

vision that in many ways that is part of inequality, isn't it? And until people, like, call that out, then nothing will happen. And it has to be people with lived experience at the forefront of that. Exactly. One of the reasons that people with lived experience don't have that voice you're saying they should have is probably because of how otherwise they are in the media. I mean, this is the thing, whether the media does it for entertainment purposes or for financial purposes, it has real-life policy consequences. So is this? the danger to this demonization of, quote, criminals, that it undermines public incentive for the reforms of the prison estate to happen that we know should be happening. This is a huge problem,

and it's not restricted to the media, it pervades our entire culture. The stories we tell ourselves about crime are all too often reduced to the monochrome and the binary. There are innocent angels, either victims or the wrongly accused and irredeemable villains who, we need to punish to adopt a favoured bullshit political phrase, the full extent of the law. We're discouraged from nuance, from seeing complexities in people's lives or situations. We're especially discouraged from seeing criminal justice as something that might affect us. Criminal justice, as I've said, is something that we all own. It's not just for cartoon burglars wearing stripy tops chased by a trunch and wielding PC dibbles.

Any of us could get sucked in. Any of us could make a mistake. If we did, we would want to be treated fairly. by a system that didn't write us off as criminal scum, but viewed us as a whole? Why do we do this? I mean, why does the media do this? Is it just about selling papers? Obviously, sensationalist, clickbait, we've seen this every week.

We know that this happens. But is there more to it? Well, there's definitely a healthy degree of self-interest among the media proprietors. There was something unsubtle, for example, about the way in which the majority of the media lined up to cheerlead government attacks on employment rights. And I don't think you'll find many journalists who would say that their working conditions have improved since.

Matilda, any thoughts on that? I mean, getting made redundant with one week's notice and no pay is normal, right? Okay, so the big question then, what can the mainstream media do better to educate people properly about the legal system? I think what would have been useful to me was to know that alternatives to prison or to long prison sentences. So whether this be abolition or whether this be rehabilitation are not new ideas. Like there's this kind of narrative that they've sprung up randomly over the last like couple of years

and that they're very kind of lefty liberal, as the secret barrister said, like lily-livered ideas. But, you know, they're not in terms of modern prison abolitionists have been organising in different groups in the UK, at least since at least the 1970s. Paula, what do you think the mainstream media can do to, better educate people properly than about the legal system? I don't know if it's like what the mainstream media can do.

It's what change makers can do to influence the mainstream media. Because if we're waiting, you know, Audrey Lord says, isn't it? The master's tools will never demolish the master's house. So to have faith in them for people with power to voluntarily adopt different attitudes is like delusional. My work at the Prison Reform Trust, you know, with my own podcast, The Secret Life of Prisons podcast, is an attempt to create an audience for a different perspective on prisons led by prisoners themselves.

I don't wait for the mainstream media to do anything. Yeah. And Secret Barrister, same question. If it doesn't cause you to immediately cut off my mic, I will elegantly segue into a plug for my second book, fake law, and modestly suggest that those working in the media read Because so many of the problems in the way we talk about justice are based on fundamental misunderstandings of how our system works. Right, time to talk about the headlines.

The big crime story of the moment, although notably it's not actually listed under crime on most news platforms, but under Royals, or in the case of the Sun Online, under fabulous subtopic celebrity. Oh, wow. Prince Andrew has been accused of having had coercive sex three times with a 17-year-old, a minor, and the country of question, by grace of his dalliance with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey, Jeffrey. The woman, who we're talking about Virginia Jeffrey, is pursuing civil litigation against the Prince, which his legal team has so far

unsuccessfully attempted to have thrown out. Now, I know the media has had a vulture feast over this case and haven't exactly gone easy on Prince Andrew, but I do wonder still about the tone of it all, whether it reflects any double standards in how the media treats people from different backgrounds when accused of or associated with crime. Yeah, for me, I do think that there is a reluctance in the media to hold Prince Andrew to account in the same way that we hold perhaps a regular person facing the allegations he's facing. So take a recent headline from the independent. Prince Andrew could be stripped of title if he loses sex case, reports say.

it's not a sex case. It's a rape case. It's a rape case. The last two weeks have not reflected well on the media. The reaction to the convictions of Galane Maxwell has been unlike anything I've seen. I cannot recall another case in which the family of a convicted sex offender have been invited

onto the BBC to sermonise about their innocence and to enjoy sympathetic puff pieces charting their tragic downfall. This isn't meant to contradict what I said before and I do think her background and the portraits of her upbringing are relevant in our understanding of her criminality. But the point is the contrast when we compare it to a 39-year-old heroin addict who has robbed a shop and knife point.

He doesn't get rendered in 3D with a public exhortation to understand how his background led him to that point. So I agree that there's definitely an element of double standards. Prince Andrew is slightly more complex. But there has been, in his case, a noticeable split between the elements of the traditional media and what is happening on social media. The former might fairly be described as playing down the allegations or certainly treating Andrew with a respect and reverence that they would likely not extend to a civilian facing similar allegations.

But on social media, there is the opposite. The near universal assumption is that he's guilty. He has, of course, done himself no favors at all with his conduct, his refusal to engage with the authorities in the US and his incredible tales of Pizza Express and inability to sweat do not, in my professional opinion, enhance his credibility. But he's not yet been convicted of anything. and instant assumptions of guilt by people who are not acquainted with any of the evidence are not fair or helpful, whether the accused is a member of the public or a non-swetting prince.

Paula, we both want to say a massive thank you for joining us and being so open and so enlightening. Where can people follow you? Do you have anything you'd like to plug? Oh, just follow me on Twitter, Paula Harriet. It's really easy. You can contact me at the Prism and Form Trust, and you can subscribe to my own particular podcast, The Secret Life of Prisons, where you'll hear more prisoners, former prisoners,

talking about the experience of being in prison. And Voice of the Secret Barrister, where can people follow you, and do you have anything to plug? You can follow The Secret barrister on Twitter at Barrister Secret. And my latest book, Nothing But the Truth,

comes out on the 12th of May, taking outsiders through the long and winding road to becoming a barrister. My previous books, The Secret Barrister and Fake Law, are available now and expand a lot on the issues that we discussed here today. Thank you for listening. We'll be back on the 27th of January with our next episode, Fatphobia, healthcare by size. That's a little switch up in case you didn't notice as we take

our release fortnightly. Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcasts so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps more people discover the podcasts and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helena Wardia and follow the show via at MediaStorm pod. Also get in touch and let us know what you'd like us to cover or who you'd like us to speak to. Media Storm, a new podcast from the House of the Guilty Feminist is part of the ACOS creator network. It is produced by Tom Salinsky and Deborah Francis White. The music is by

Samfire and the voice of the secret barrister was Rajiv Coria.