Woman's Hour - What is it like to be a woman in prison?

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

The Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood believes “prison isn’t working” for women and wants to reduce the number of female prisoners. So what has gone wrong? Nuala McGovern speaks to Scarlett Roberts who is a former prisoner and is now a Churchill Fellow and to former prisoner Jules Rowan, now a personal trainer, who co-hosts the Life After Prison podcast. They are joined by former prisoner officer and former Head of Security and Operations at HMP Wormwood Scrubs Vanessa Frake-Harris, and by prison Intelligence Analyst and author of Five by Five, Claire Wilson. And Lucy Russell, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the charity Women in Prison, describes the challenges faced by women in prison today.What can be done to improve the prison system for women? Nuala speaks to justice system reformer Lady Edwina Grosvenor about her pioneering project Hope Street in Southampton, which aims to keep women in criminal justice system out of jail and with their children and to Alex Davies Jones MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice about the Government's plans to tackle the issue of women's prisons.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Laura Northedge

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome. This hour, a special programme on women in prisons. Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, believes prison isn't working for women. She says it is her ultimate ambition to cut the number of female prisoners. But what will that take? And what does it mean

for society if women who commit crimes are given more leniency in the future than they do now? The Labour MP Alex Davies-Jones will be with us to explain why the government thinks a different path is essential. We do know there are more than 3,500 female prisoners in England held across 12 prisons. More than half have children under the age of 18. We'll talk about the impact on families of imprisonment of women. And we'll also speak to two former prisoners about what life is like as a woman on the inside surviving day to day. How did they manage? What did they see? What would they change?

Some of the same questions I'll put to the former head of security and operations at HMP Wormwood Scrubs who will join us. We'll hear from Claire Wilson, author and intelligence analyst in a Scottish prison, and Lady Edwina Grosvenor on what she thinks the future of women's prisons should look like. So what is it like to be a woman in prison in the UK? Who goes to prison and why? And what's it like when you're inside? Well joining me in the studio is Scarlett Roberts who is a former prisoner, now a Churchill Fellow, so working to create change in the UK. We also have Jules Rowan who is also a former prisoner and is a personal

trainer who co-hosts the Life After Prison podcast. Beside me I also have Vanessa Frayke Harris, a former prison officer at His Majesty's Prison Holloway and former head of security and operations at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Vanessa wrote a book about her experience called The Governor, My Life Inside Britain's Most Notorious Jails. But first, we speak to Lucy Russell, who's also at the Women's Era table. She's head of policy and public Affairs at the charity Women in Prison.

And is going to briefly give us a picture of who are the women who are in prison and why. Welcome Lucy. So what are the figures of the amount of women that are in prison today? In prison at the moment there's roughly about 3,500 women. Women make up about 4% of the whole prison population in England and there aren't any prisons for women in Wales, so all Welsh women are in English prisons as well. Roughly about, just over half of women are in prison on short sentences so they are in there for six months or less. So in November we explored the impact of parental imprisonment on the families of offenders. How would you characterize it? There's a recent report called Time to Care by Her Majesty's Inspector of

Prison. They found that women are so traumatized by being separated from their children and families and particularly by not being able to have visits and have contact that they are going into really difficult mental health crisis and are actually self-harming and hurting themselves. It's one of the key factors that really disrupts women's lives. Prison also takes you away from your house, your job, your community. We know a lot of women who have lost their housing situation, so perhaps kind of tenancies, women who've lost their jobs, and particularly when women are put on remand, which means that they are sent straight to

prison as soon as they're arrested, as well as women who are on short sentences. Sometimes we see women go in for just a few days and then back into the community to homelessness, to substance misuse. I mean, some might be asking, how is it different than for male offenders? It's enormously different for women. Women are in for a lot more offences that they will have been coerced, that they will have been forced into. So women are often the people who put their names onto debts and they get drawn into that. The number of women who are in prison for a mental health difficulty is just astronomical. It's over 50% of women

identify as having a mental health concern when they start in prison and nearer 31% for men. So there's quite a big difference. The rates of self harm in prisons, they're eight times higher in the women's prisons than they are in men's. So the situation in women's prisons is some of the worst circumstances it's been in decades. Prison is just setting women up to fail and that's what needs to change. But that wouldn't be all women. Obviously there are some that must stay in prison, I would imagine, even under your thinking. It's likely that there would always be a need for some kind of secure setting, but what

you'll find is a lot of women actually get sent to prison because of mental health crisis because at the moment the law allows for prison to be what's called a place of safety which is a place where you can be sent to when you're very mentally ill. What should happen in those processes is that women should then be transferred to a secure mental establishment. What actually happens is that's very slow, takes a long time and during that time women are often criminalised. We would say that if you looked at the women's population and gave proper good quality mental health care to a lot of the women, including those who are in for a long time and on serious offences, you would find very few needed a secure environment after that.

Thanks for that Lucy. I want to turn to Scarlett and Jules who I mentioned at the beginning were former prisoners, you're both very welcome. Scarlett, when did you go to prison? I was imprisoned in 2022 for four months but I was sentenced to 16 months by the judge. And can you remember that first day? What was it like? It's devastating from the moment you leave the courtroom Well, there was no expectation that I was going to prison which is important to note I had a pre-sentence report done by a probation officer. I had Mitigation statements from a clinical psychologist who'd worked with me At the time of the offense I committed was in 2019

I was in a very toxic relationship and I was taking a lot of drugs. I was a drug addict, there was no question. I was convicted of one offence in 2019 and given a suspended sentence and that suspended sentence included a community order, a court order drugs rehabilitation requirement, which worked. I spent nine months in community drugs rehabilitation. I got myself sober. And then the pandemic happened when all those services shut down. And I panicked because I knew it was prime time to go back to where I came from. So I left the country.

So I was living a life abroad when I was convicted again of something I did in 2019. And the judge sent me to prison. So first of all, to answer your question, there was no expectation I was going to prison. I was wearing a black dress, black boots. I had nothing and I was taken through a back door into a blacked out van and from that moment onwards you don't see the outside world. You land in a prison cell, nobody explains anything. I wasn't allowed to see my barrister between the courtroom and the prison van. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know Anything about what was about to happen

Jules, what about you? First day in prison. I mean I agree with scarlet. You don't really know what's going on you have You have no clear path as soon as you're kind of sentenced and it was scary. It was dark It was very confusing. I was 20 when I went to prison, so majority of the women were older than me. Two weeks into my sentence, I was shipped to Yorkshire, which is very far. And it wasn't until I got there I was able to call home and tell them that's where I was. I have an amazing family so they came but it kind of just shows how little control you have in there and there's not really much you can

do about it so it's a bit of a scary place. Was it different to, I mean we a lot of people that are listening that have this vision of prison and it's one really that we've picked up from TVs and from movies. Is that what you expected? Is that what you found? So it's interesting. Before I went to prison, I was Googling what prison was going to be like, because I had no idea. And I had to stop watching stuff that was to do with prison because it's just, it totally throws you.

Yes and no. Like, yes, it looks like what you kind of see on TV depending on the prison you're in. I think you've got a glamorizing glorification of prison on TV. It's not exactly what you see. A lot of the American stuff is not the same. But yes, your cell pretty much looks like four walls with no ventilation and the door is locked, you've got a hard bed, a hard blue mattress and so it might not look exactly what it is on TV but you are kind of stripped from all your identity and it's a really strange environment to be in.

Yes, Scarlett is nodding her head with some of that. It's disassociative, you disassociate completely. That's what I was wondering, like, is your heart beating in your chest or are you just resigned to it? And I'm sure everybody's different. I felt like I wanted to cry and I couldn't. I don't know about you, George. I, yeah, I mean, I think everyone reacts very differently. I went very kind of cold and I'm not that sort of person. I'm really quite bubbly.

I'm outgoing. It's what I've been known for my whole life. And I was the complete opposite in there. Like didn't really want I didn't want to talk to anyone for a good year. Wow. Yeah, we'll talk about relationships a little bit afterwards. But also listening to this is Vanessa who I introduced at the beginning of the program as well. You're on the other side, a former prison officer.

Did you always know you wanted to work in prisons? No, not at all. I wanted to join the Rens in all fairness. And I passed the interview and then I realized that women were sure based at that time, so they weren't allowed to do anything really interesting. It was all pretty menial office jobs and that's not what I wanted to do. I happened to be in London one weekend and I saw an advert on the Tube and it said,

your prison service needs you and you too could make a difference. I thought, well, I quite fancy that working with people and, and maybe trying to help them. And so I applied. I did my training. I knew that I was going to Holloway. I'd heard the reputation of Holloway. What was that at that time? Well, at that time, right the way through, Holloway was seen as a very poor place for women. And, you know, I was kind of struck when I first walked in as to suddenly being surrounded by all these women that, you know, many of them had clearly had mental health issues. The amount of self-harm, you know, nobody prepares you to deal with self-harm, to deal

with suicide. And, you know, that really struck me. And I think, you know, I spent nine and thirty years in the prison service and, you know, I worked at Holloway for sixteen years, then moved on to the male estate. And I can honestly say that working with the men was much easier than working with women. Why? Because, like Lucy said, you know, the rates of self-harm, and I'm not just talking, you know, simple self-harms. I'm talking really bad self-harms, self-harms that are too raw to speak about still. Women are, they often come into prison with abuse, with previous traumas that may have led them to commit crime.

Some of the sentences were ridiculous. We had one woman in who had stolen a British rail sandwich and got a six-week sentence, you know, and like Lucy said, you know, she probably lost her home, lost her support systems and we send her out after a couple of weeks to what? To nothing. Some of the details that you speak about there, Vanessa, might be very disturbing to some and, you know, I want to acknowledge that and also mention that if you have been affected by any of the issues that you're hearing, we do have help and support on the BBC's action line. What do you think prison is for Vanessa? Well the number one thing is to protect the public and I'm not sure that locking a woman up for six weeks for nicking a British rail sandwich is protecting the public. I just failed to see, you know, how ripping a mother from

her children when, you know, 17,000 children are affected by parents being locked up every year and I just failed to see what good that does. And I know the inspectorate to come up with that figure of 17,000. Same question to all three of you. Maybe you, Jules, first. What is prison for? That is the question. That's the big question. Yeah. And that's the question I have been asking lately because we don't know. Essentially, we do but we don't. So it's supposed to be there for rehabilitation if we really look into it, supposed to be, but it's not. It's there to protect the public, which is important. We really do need to make sure everyone is safe. But it's not set up for rehabilitation because it is really hard to rehabilitate yourself inside. So it's there

to protect the public and then I think the rest is I guess punishment. And yeah, I think when we really understand that then we can move forward with it. Scarlett? Again, I couldn't agree more. The victim should be first and forefront of any sentencing decision and if it's in general public protection absolutely prison is the right place. In terms of what we do in prison, for me prison should be like scaffolding is to a building when it's being renovated. It's a temporary structure on which somebody can rebuild their lives so when they come

out they're not walking out into a pile of rubble. Lucy. We would hope that prison had a role in rehabilitation and reducing reoffending, but it really doesn't. If you look at reoffending rates, they're really, really high. And if you look at what happens to women when they're released from prison, women are released into homelessness, back to live near abusive partners, back into areas where their substance misuse isn't being addressed. And so the

role of prison to stop reoffending just does not work. And instead women are being set up to fail. They're getting into kind of vicious cycles of short sentences going in and out, in and out. And so at the moment the system is very, very expensive, very, very traumatic for women and it's just not working. I want to turn to the current government's stance. They came into power with a clear line on women in prison. In September, the Secretary of State for Justice, Sheibana Mahmood, said, the simple truth is that we are sending too many women to prison. Many are victims themselves and over half are mothers leaving a child behind when they go inside. She set up the

Women's Justice Board to reduce the number of women in prison and increase the number as supported in the community. Then Lord Timpson, Minister of State for Prisons, Parole and Probations, said this in January, we would like to get to a stage when we can close a women's prison. However, new rules on sentencing criminals from ethnic minorities, also women and pregnant women, that were due to be introduced on Tuesday have officially been paused. This follows a weeks-long standoff between senior judges and the government. So with the government clear that they want this initiative removed

how does the government intend to change the number of women that are in prison and get that number down? I spoke to Alex Davies-Jones, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, and began by asking her why the Justice Secretary, Sheibana McMough, says prison is not working. I totally agree. I think prison isn't working for women. We are seeing far too many women in prison when we necessarily don't think they should be. Let me be very, very clear that there will always be a place in prison for the women who need to be there for public protection, but we very much see that as the exception and not the norm. You know, over two thirds of women are in prison for non-violent offences and we feel like they could be far better rehabilitated

and reduce reoffending in the community through intervention methods. And we know that over 60% of women in prison are victims themselves. And it is really quite shocking that women in the prison estate are nine times more likely to suffer from self-harm. So we know that prison doesn't work for these women, and it just causes a cycle of offending and abuse and trauma where it's not working for anyone, it's not working for the taxpayer, it's not working for the public, it's not working for the women and therefore we need to think differently

which is why the the Lord Chancellor has set up the Women's Justice Board to look exactly at how we deal with the issue of women in prison and mothers in prison particularly. Well let's talk about the Women's Justice Board then which has been assembled. What do you think it can actually do? I think the Women's Justice Board is uniquely placed. It is made up of a bunch of experts from across England and Wales with real experience looking at the issue of women in prison to tackle some of the challenges head-on to tackle the issue of why women are sent to prison when they haven't committed serious violent crimes and it just reinforces the issue of reoffending rather than breaking that cycle. Why women are victims themselves in prison

and why they are being sent to prison and it's looking at the issue of mothers in prison whether they are pregnant women being sent to prison or mothers with children on the outside. I think one of the saddest statistics that we've seen is that 75% of children who have a mother sent to prison actually end up leaving the family home and the majority of these children then end up going into a life of crime themselves and it's not serving anyone and we need to break this cycle in order to create better citizens, to protect the public, but also to create meaningful changes which is what this government was elected to do. Over the past few days there has been a row over a two-tier justice system and

the Sentencing Council have withdrawn instructions for judges which asked them to consider, among other things, an offender's ethnicity, their gender, whether or not they're pregnant, coming to the point that you raised, before sentencing them. Why was the government opposed to the new guidelines? One might think that they would be useful if, in fact, it's trying to keep the number of women prisoners down and particularly those who are pregnant. So the government has been very clear. The Lord Chancellor and the Prime Minister have been very clear when they have said that no one should be above the law and we are all equal before it. That is why the Lord Chancellor is bringing forward emergency legislation to tackle this issue directly. But also to

be clear, pregnant women are taken into consideration by the judiciary when passing sentences that won't change. Circumstances are to be determined by the judiciary who are independent when passing these sentences. But we are also clear that issues of policy should be determined by the judiciary who are independent when passing these sentences. But we are also clear that issues of policy should be made by politicians directly, which is why the Lord Chancellor is bringing forward that emergency legislation to ensure that that happens today. You talk about everybody being equal in front of the law, but what you have been speaking about and also the Justice Secretary and perhaps the Women's Justice Board will as well, is a different

approach to women than it is to men. So that does not sound equal to me. I think we need to be very clear when we discuss crimes that are committed by women and men. 98% of all violent crimes are committed by men, so there is a clear gender discrepancy being carried out here amongst the crimes that we are seeing. As I've mentioned, we know that women who are in prison, over 60% of them, are victims of crime themselves. Some of them are the most horrific crimes we can think of, such as domestic abuse, rape, serious sexual assault. And therefore, it's about making sure that we rehabilitate these women, that we make

sure that they are, that whatever sentence is passed down to them actually works to prevent them from re-entering into a life of crime so that we create better citizens. We have recognised that as a government which is why we have set up the Women's Justice Board to look at exactly how we do that. The government was clearly elected with that mandate. We have also been clear that these decisions should be made by accountable politicians which is why we have taken the decision we have around the Women's Justice Board.

Should pregnant women be in prison? I don't want to see pregnant women or mothers in prison, but sadly there will always be a place in prison for women who need to be, whether they are mothers or not. But what should be taken into consideration is the impact that it will have, the crime that is being taken place, which will all be considered by the independent judiciary and all issues that will be considered by the Women's Justice Board, looking at how we make recommendations that we should follow. But we've all been very, very clear that we know that on the vast majority of occasions, prison isn't the

best place for mothers or pregnant women. Is it difficult, however, to try and decide what crimes should be given leniency or not? So for example some crimes are called victimless crimes whereas others would very much disagree with that characterization. Let's take something like shoplifting for example. Well as the victims minister I don't necessarily see any crime as being a victimless crime you know there are victims of all crimes and each should be taken very very seriously it's why this government is bringing forward new measures to tackle shoplifting because of the

impact it is having on our communities but what is clear is that we make sure that punishment actually works to protect the public and keep everybody safe first and foremost. That is the biggest issue, is known the biggest factor in prison sentences. But also that we look to rehabilitate people so that we stop that cycle of re-offending. It's why we've launched a landmark sentencing review by Sir David Gork to look at exactly what we should do around sentencing, why our prisons are full and we need to make sure that we are locking up those people who are a danger to the public and who deserve to be locked up, but while looking at a different way forward of how we break the cycle of offending

in order to make sure that we are all with the prison will always be a place for people who need to be there. But how what can we do differently? How can we stop this cycle and how can we stop running out of prison places faster than we can build them because it has to be both. That was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, Alex Davies-Jones. Thanks very much to her. Lucy, you've been listening to that. Your thoughts? Very interesting conversation. Sentencing is going to be absolutely pivotal if the government wants to reduce the number of women going to prison. What we do know is at the moment,

black women, women from ethnic minority groups are massively overrepresented at every single layer of the criminal justice system. We also know that four babies have died in the last few years in prison and that a pregnant woman in prison is seven times more likely to have a stillbirth. When we look at the Sentencing Council guidelines, what we're really boiling it down to is better quality information for those who are making the decisions about sentencing. Well, we've heard there about the government's plans for women in prison, but I want to go back to this experience of being in prison and how it affects women directly.

Jules, I want to go to you. Something that you said there struck me a little earlier, that you just didn't speak for a year when you went into prison, you stopped interacting with people? Yeah, I think it was a protection thing. I really wanted to protect myself, my thoughts, my feelings. I didn't know who I could speak to or to trust. So that made me, it made me scared. I was scared and unhappy and I was very wary. What were you scared of? and unhappy and I was very wary. What were you scared of? It's a very good question.

I think the unknown. I didn't have a clue what was going on. Was it the other prisoners? Was it the guards? Little bits of that. I think not having any control, not knowing how my sentence was going to play out, where I was going to be, which cell I was going to move to next, who I was going to be around, which next person I was going to be, which cell I was going to move to next, who I was going to be around, which next person I was going to meet.

And also it turned me just not positive. I was positive inside about, you know, I wanted to rehabilitate myself, I needed to, but I couldn't have any other kind of like external factors messing around with that. It's interesting also that you say you wanted to rehabilitate yourself, that you were already... what did you feel you had really done something wrong and that you needed to be rehabilitated? I'm just trying to get inside your head. Yeah I think when I was sent to prison I was 20. There was a lot going on with my case and I was really young and I didn't get the right legal help either. I was sentenced to five years and should I have been sent to prison

that's not that's not the issue you know I did things wrong that night and I was sent to prison and I was ready to face that but it was more like how am I gonna do two and a half years in prison and come out better and okay because the environment I'm in is not there to support me doing that. And I want to hear how you did that. What about you Scarlett? How do you think prison impacted your day-to-day behavior? Women are naturally caregivers and in that I don't mean made to give birth to children necessarily. The women produce massive doses of hormone called oxytocin when they birth a child, when they nurse a child, when they stroke a dog,

when they climax during sex, right? And it's a bonding hormone. It's what connects us and women are naturally compassionate, connected beings. That's why we have this nurturing place. We care for not just children, but our elders, our family, the wider community. So when you dislocate a woman woman's life disconnect her from society Sling her in a prison cell on her own and more even worse give a man the keys to lock the door There's something very frightening and you just for me personally I disassociated not just from the outside world and I just disassociated from my own body too because not just from the outside world, and I just disassociated from my own body too, because my purpose was gone, my job was gone, my family were gone. Everything was curtailed and contracted to a number.

I was a number, A9422ET. That was it. You still have it off. Oh, that's ingrained in me forever. That's not going away. That number rolls off me because it was who I was. We're going to come back and talk about relationships as well. But I want to introduce our listeners to Claire Wilson because she is somebody who thinks about the way people behave in prison and she does that for a living.

Her role is intelligence analyst in a Scottish prison. So she looks over CCTV footage and phone calls to check that prisoners and prison officers aren't engaging in illegal or corrupt activities. It's a fascinating job, I would imagine, Clare. I know you've also written a novel, Five by Five, which is a thriller about Kennedy Allardyce, is the protagonist whose job, funny enough, is to root out corruption in a Scottish prison. The book won the inaugural Penguin Michael Joseph

undiscovered writers prize. You've worked for the prison service for over 20 years so you've obviously done some deep research for this book. I'm wondering, because I know you can only speak about your job a certain amount, how much of your protagonist Kennedy is based on autobiographical experience? Well, I tried to make the antagonist completely different to myself, but everybody that's read the book, including my son, has definitely said that it's you. So I've obviously failed massively there. But yeah, I've worked in the prison service for just over 24 years and I got the role in the intelligence unit in 2011, the end of 2011 and as soon as I finished the training and you know started to

understand the role because it's such a complex role that I realized that there's a book here because my goal in life and my dream in life was to be a famous writer. So I left school at 16 to be a famous writer and took a temporary 18-month contract with the prison service because I thought, well that's all it'll take in 18 months. I'll be 17 and a half and I'll be famous. And yeah, my book came out last year so that went well for me. But it has got great reviews as I mentioned there as well. But tell me a little bit about what you're looking for

or have been looking for over previous years. So basically, the main duties for my role is to keep the establishment safe, not only for the staff, but for the prisoners as well and their visitors. Like anybody that comes into contact with that establishment, it's my job to keep everybody safe and in order to keep people safe we try to reduce the violence and more importantly reduce the introduction of contraband because there's a correlation between drugs misuse and violence in prison because if you're taking drugs and you haven't paid for those drugs then it can lead to violence and it can lead to debt so if we can stop the drugs

becoming in the first place then that's a big help. Is that in women's prisons as well as men's? The establishment I work in houses both male and female prisoners. And is there different behaviours within the two populations? Yes, I would say again to agree with what Vanessa said earlier, I would agree that the men are easier to manage than the females. Why? The men just seem to get on with it better.

The women, they are harder to manage because they can be quite needy in terms of their mental health. It's funny because women who aren't in prison will run around for their men who are in prison. They'll attend every visit, they'll put money into their PPC every week, their personal cash every week. They will buy them clothes, they will pay their drug debts, but when a woman's in custody there's not that same respect. The man, for example, in a heterosexual relationship is not turning up. No, they will not turn up for visits.

They will forget to put their money in for their PPC. It's so interesting because it speaks to Scarlett's point there about being a caregiver or a nurturer. And I'm going to get into relationships a little bit deeper in a bit, Claire, but you're observing it. You're really looking for problems within relationships, perhaps bullying or aspects like that. Bullying is a big problem in custody because there's really strong characters and there's also really weak characters.

And the way I try to describe it to people is, you know, when you were at school, there was maybe that one person in your class that you always thought you can, you're going to go to jail, you're going to end up in prison. Whereas a hall, as a whole hall, like 60 people like that, that are, and it's all about the hierarchy. Who's at the top and who's at the bottom? And if you show any sign of weakness at all, then that's you, you're a target. Is that for women as well as men?

Women and men, yeah, because what you have to understand as well is people can be locked up in their rooms for 23 hours a day. That's boring. There's only so many times you can watch TV. That's why they take drugs. That's why they wind each other up. Sometimes it's all, again, it's about saving faces. well. It's all about your reputation. Let's throw it over to Jules and Scarlett. What about what Claire is saying and any of those things about showing weakness or reputation or boredom? Yeah, I mean prison is boring. Like Claire said, sometimes you're you're locked up for 23 hours a day. What do you do? What did you do? What did you do? Well, I mean, a lot of times it's coloring. I was coloring for writing down thoughts.

I used to, I used my time to work out. So I was working out in my cell and I spent, you know, a section of the day of my time committed to that. It made me feel like I was doing something. I walked up and down my cell, which is probably like eight steps there, eight steps back, daytime TV, loose women was a thing. So you have to really think about how you're going to use the time. You, Scarlett? Same. I mean, I'm an exercise physiologist by trade anyways. And realizing, like Jules was mentioning before, this total loss of control. Couldn't advocate over when I showered,

if I showered, whether I could take paracetamol or not. You know, I had COVID, they were like, in case you overdose, we can't give you pain relief. You know, some really arbitrary decisions made that were really dehumanizing. And I realized quite quickly, the only thing I had control over was my own body inside my cell.

And I remembered that But the officers used to be like I'd be standing on my head and they'd be like if you broke your neck We're not taking you to hospital and I sort of thought fair, you know, at least then I'll be dead You know, then it was that it was kind of funny but dark, you know most prisoners do do All the courses provided in there. So a lot of people do that and they'll work their way through it. However, these courses won't set you up for a job outside. And that's where this rehabilitation thing comes involved. That's one of the top things that needs to be done.

Yeah, about not just women in prison, but what happens afterwards. Claire, are you staying in the prison service? Are you going to try and be that famous full-time author? Oh, well, if I could be the famous full-time author, I'd be out the door. Where would you have the material or maybe you've got the memories? Well, I've got the memory. I've got 24 years, 24 years in counting memories. And that's the thing people say to me, you know, how do you research your books? And I'm like, I love it. 40 hours a week, I love it. Claire Wilson, thank you very much for speaking to us and I should say the novel is five by five.

Hello, I'm Namulanta Kombo, the host of Dear Daughter. What do you want to tell your daughter about your own life? What would you want her to know about the world? Please write her a letter and share it with us. Your advice, your hopes, your fears, and your jokes, I want to hear it all. Visit our website at bbcworldservice.com slash dear daughter for more information on how to send us your letters. See you soon. I want to continue speaking a bit more about the unique institution that is prison.

We're talking about behavior there, for example, and also, you know, hundreds of people incarcerated together, expected to follow instructions from prison staff. I want to get into the relationships that might be there. Vanessa, how would you describe the relationship between guards and prisoners? From my own personal point of view, it was always professional. What does that mean though? Well, you know, the question I've been asked so many times since I retired was, what you actually spoke to prisoners? Yes, absolutely I did. I asked them about their families, about their visits, about their day, what they were doing, they would ask me, you know, and I think it's important that those relationships are built

because prisoners, whether you like it or not, actually run a jail and you can't run a jail without the cooperation of prisoners. Okay, let's expand on that. Okay, so we had a wing when I was at Wilmwood Scrubs, we had 300 prisoners on it and to run that was six staff and a senior officer, and that was day in, day out. You know, if prisoners wanted to riot, they could quite easily riot. So you do rely on prisoners' cooperation, but to get that cooperation, you've got to interact with prisoners, and that's how you find intelligence and the ability to root

out the bad eggs within the prison system. Because any big institution, you are going to have bad eggs in that. But it seems to me, Vanessa, that you're coming at it, that the prisoner is essentially a decent person, that there's just some bad eggs, bad apples within it? No, no, no. Well, look, you know, my job wasn't to judge them. My job was to look after them, to keep them safe, to try and help them turn their lives around. My job wasn't to decide whether they were a bad person or a good person. They'd been judged. They'd been judged in a court. They'd been sentenced to whatever.

And now it was my turn to ensure their safety and look after them and try and help them turn their lives around. Will you speak though, as if you had a certain amount of compassion or kindness with the prisoners? Look, I don't know whether, you know, sometimes it's there for the grace of God. You know how many people have gone more than 30 miles an hour down the road and thankfully not hit anybody. But the minute you go 40 miles an hour and you kill somebody, you know, you can end up with a five-year sentence. Prisoners aren't bad people. They're people who have

made bad choices. And I suppose that is a real distinction though and I think there would be an argument, for example, if I threw it out to the public at large on that aspect. But were you ever concerned Vanessa, that you might be perceived as weak? No, never. Prisoners from me got exactly what they were entitled to, nothing more. And if a prisoner asked me a question, if I didn't know the answer, I'd go and find out. I never lied to a prisoner. That is not being weak, that's doing your job. In your experience, how common were sexual relationships

and arguably abuse between prisoners and officers? Certainly not as much as seems to go on today, but there were instances. I mean when I was at Holloway we had a couple of male staff who were found to have sexual relationships with female prisoners, which is an abuse of power whichever way way you look at it. And, you know, those people put prisoners at risk, they put other staff at risk, and, you know, they should be rooted out. I can't give you figures, but certainly it seems to be more prevalent today. We did see one story in January that was a woman who was a former

HMP Wandsworth prison officer who was filmed having sex with an inmate and was jailed for 15 months. What did you think when you saw that story? Well, my first thought was was honestly, how could she allow herself to be filmed like that. My second thought was was she coerced into that. My third thought once details had come out about her was how on earth did she ever get through the vetting process. Of course all people that are thrown together for such a long time, I'm

sure some of the relationships are very intense, there can be consensual relationships as well. As Scarlett you wrote a piece for The Telegraph about your experience of a sexual relationship while in prison. Are you comfortable speaking to us about it? I am. I think relationship is a bit of an overstatement. Okay fine, you can use whatever word you want. I think most anyone can understand who's ever set foot in a prison, relationships are very transient. Prisons are sensory deprivation chambers.

You can't, you appreciate it. Nothing smells of anything, everything's bland. You're kept on the brink of hunger at all times. You're always just a little bit too cold. Everything disassociates you from your body. And there is in some way an understanding where I thought it's the only way to feel. How else can I feel anything? My desperation was, I can't feel anything here. I've lost connection with who I am.

So it is to connect. It was connection. That's very, yeah, very simply. It was a way to feel. It was adrenaline. It was thrilling. It was sexy. It was curious. It was nothing I would ever have considered on the outside. And it was over very quickly. Are there rules Vanessa about sexual relationships in prisons? I mean when it comes to something like... Scarlett's saying I don't know. Well you've done it. You've done it now. I think it's fair to say anyone in prison has already broken the rules so I'm not sure that something is a cheeky bonk.

Is that kind of frightening to us anymore. I suppose what I'm thinking is where do you get the privacy or the time or the people or do people just always find a way? I mean I'm not probably not the one to answer that one to be honest but look when I first joined a prison service I joined in 1986 when I sat my interview, one of the questions they asked me was, when you get to Holloway and you walk into a cell and you find two women in bed together,

what are you going to do? And I said, I have no idea, I don't know what the rules are. And one of the people interviewing me said, well, it's not allowed. And when I got to Holloway, in those days, of course, we didn't have fabulous computers, every prisoner had a hard copy record. And on any prisoner who was either identified as a lesbian or gay or had

sexual relations with another prisoner, had a big F in red stamped on the front of their record to warn other staff about this person. Thankfully things have now changed. In in the female estate it does happen because as Scarlett quite rightly said you know women women look for comfort through emotion but physical contact you know is important to women you know a hug you know a cuddle it's important to us as carers in the male estate it's it's virtually unheard of because it's still seen in the male

estate as taboo. Can I just add one thing they just call it gay for the stay. Yeah. There is a famous phrase. Now Claire is nodding along here, who's been watching all sorts of behaviours from her surveillance TV. It's a natural thing. Definitely, definitely. Like as Vanessa said, women, it's open, but it is frowned upon. Like I'm not actually quite sure on the rules, but it's not encouraged. But women are walking around, they'll hold hands. And it is like you say will walk around, they'll hold hands and it is like you say, they'll get released and they'll go back to their husbands or their long-term boyfriends

because it is for that comfort and it's for that companionship that you're just craving something. It's just something that happens and it's hard to keep on top of it because some of the women they're not in relationships for long and then they'll maybe one day they'll be seen with one woman and then maybe like a week later, that will be done and they'll have moved on to somebody else. And it causes a lot of relationship issues and a lot of management issues in the whole area. Among very traumatised women, as we were discussing.

Exactly, exactly. And I think that's where the concern comes from, is it comes from a trauma informed, is this woman consenting to this relationship or is she thinking, well I'm used to just being taken advantage of, so there's a fine line there. Lucy Russell, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the charity Women in Prison. Relationships between prisoners in women's prisons, are they allowed? Is there any rules against them? To my knowledge there's no definite policy that says it can or cannot happen, but it's definitely discouraged and kind of frowned upon in prisons. But in terms of relationships and abusive

relationships, there's a real issue that we know that in the general public a huge amount of sexual assaults don't get reported and so what we probably don't know is what kind of abusive relationships are happening in prisons, what negative situations there are and we'll probably never get a full picture of that. You're listening to Women's Hour and today we're talking about what it's like to be a woman in prison. We're also asking today whether there's a better way to run prisons for women than the current model. We know the government would like to imprison fewer women and we've heard about the challenges

that women face in prison. So what could be a potential solution? Well Lady Edwina Grosvenor has an idea. She is a justice system reformer with over 20 years of experience and also has expertise working in the criminal justice sector. Her pioneering project is Hope Street in Southampton, and it aims to keep women in the criminal justice system out of jail and with their children. Welcome to Woman's Hour.

Thank you. Good to have you with us. Anything you've been hearing so far today that has surprised you? And I know you've a couple of decades working in the prison sector? Yeah, nothing that surprised me at all. Yeah, as you say, I started working in prisons when I was 18 and so it's just a shame. I feel that we really haven't progressed very far. You come from a very privileged background. Why do you have this interest in criminal justice?

Yeah, good question because it's not an easy life. I, at the age of 13, was taken to Hope Street in Liverpool by my parents. They were very worried that me and my siblings might turn to drugs at some point going through our teenage years. I think they were worried about our privileged backgrounds, as you alluded to to and so they decided that the best way to educate us was to take us to meet two people who were using heroin to be able to talk to us as young people and try and educate us as to why it was a really bad idea because let's be honest, if my parents had tried to educate us we probably would have ignored them. So and my interest grew from there. When I was

15, I did work experience with a charity that was trying to keep mothers and children together. They were being taught how to be mothers, because they hadn't been mothered themselves. That really fascinated me. But the whole time I was thinking, wow, you know, I've been born into this family. Which is a very wealthy family, just to put it in perspective for people who aren't familiar with you. Yeah and these other children were being born into different families and I sort of thought gosh my chances in life are much greater, their chances are much lesser so I've always had that sense of injustice in a way. But then I studied criminology, I did an undergrad in criminology,

I've got a masters in crime scene management. So academically it's always been an interest of mine too, as well as working on the front line for the last 25 years. So tell us about Hope Street. So Hope Street is a residential alternative to custody. It actually sits over the entire county of Hampshire. The main building is in Southampton, but then we have houses that we have bought dotted around the county so once the women and the children have been in our main building, the hub, which is in Southampton, they can move on because actually the housing weight in Southampton is

it's near seven years so we needed that part of Hope Street to be there because accommodation is a vital piece of the jigsaw. We have women who come to us from prison. So they've served their time? So they've served their time. They might be coming out on license, but many women who get sent to prison are leaving to homelessness. So we've had, we had a woman recently who was one week off giving birth and she was being released homeless from prison. She was able to come to Hope Street. She was with us for not very long. She had her baby with us.

The baby was born safely and then she has been rehomed. We have women who come from prison. We have women who get sent by the court to us. But crucially, women can come from the court on sentence with their children. They can either come on remand, and remand is when they're awaiting for their trial, because 65% of women, I think it is, who are remanded into prison, awaiting trial, go on to get a non-custodial sentence. So being on remand before your trial, they are caught up in the prison system at that

point? Yeah, because a magistrate might say, well, I would like to give you a community sentence. What's your address? Oh, I'm homeless. Well, I can't give you a community sentence then, so off you go to prison. Oh, I'd like to give you a community sentence. What's your address? There's domestic violence in the background. So then a judge is not, a magistrate is not going to want to give you a community sentence. What's your address? There's domestic violence in the background.

So then a magistrate is not going to want to give someone home detention curfew if they know that there are abusers in their home. So what does the magistrate do? They look around the local area, the county, where are the safe beds for women that we can sentence these women to? Where are they? They don't really exist. But they do in Hope Street.

So they do in Hope Street. So they do in Hope Street. The project, the Hope Street project, it won the 2024 Reba McEwen Architecture Award. I was looking at the design of the building. It's very beautiful. It's kind of pine wood. It's kind of curved. It's not what I would think of as a prison or indeed sound anything like what Jules and Scarlett have been telling me what their experience was. I mean, some might say too cushy, too deluxe. Well, it's good that it didn't look like a prison because it's not a prison. So we have to understand that when women are sentenced, they can either get a custodial sentence, which is what everybody else knows is a prison sentence. But we also have something called the community justice system and community sentences.

And I think I feel like I've entered a sort of parallel universe where it's not really talked about anymore. You know, community justice is really important. These issues start in the community. They will be fixed in the community. We are talking about a cohort of women, as lots of the other contributors have talked about. These are not people who are a danger or a threat to society. We're talking about the people who should not be being sent to prison in the first place. So actually, for those women who need to go, the judge will always make that decision. That will probably happen in a crown court if it's really serious and something like

murder. We do not get involved in the sentencing decisions. What we're saying is bring sense back to the justice system and let's make sure there's room for the people who need to go. And for those who don't, for those who do need a community sentence, let's make sure that the judiciary have the ability to be able to send women and their children to a safe place where they can do their sentence well. How is it funded? So it has been funded through philanthropy, so trust and foundations and then individual philanthropists.

The idea is that, and I think this is a really important point because, you know, at a time when everyone's tightening their belts, the cost of living going up, philanthropists and trusts and foundations exist to be able to help, right? And I have always sort of worked with the government and I've always wanted to improve things within the justice system. So what we've been able to do is leverage social finance and philanthropy, bring that to the table, and wanting to make a case to the government to say,

we've provided this infrastructure, we provided the model, which by the way, we've designed to be replicable and scalable. So Hope Street could be taken out of Hampshire and put in any other county and would work in the same way. And then when it comes to looking at sort of operating costs and the areas that the government could move into, you either start looking at the local commissioning routes and there's something quite exciting about that

philanthropic government partnership going forward. Is that something that you're talking about with the Women's Justice Board because you're one of the 10 experts who's on that board? Are they listening to you? Do you think it's something that will be replicated? I really, really hope so. In the last six months we've prevented five children from unnecessarily going into the care system. We are taking women out of mother and baby units from the prisons around the country. And it's really working. What else do you think is coming down the pipe from the Women's Justice Board? Well, as you mentioned, you know, I'm really buoyed by the fact that both Lord Timpson

and Shebana Mahmood, the Secretary of State for Justice, have publicly said, and bearing in mind, yes, words are just words, but we haven't had that before, certainly in my career, both the prisons minister and the secretary of state for justice publicly saying there are too many women in prison, far too many of them in prison shouldn't be there. Let's bring sense to the system and let's start driving those numbers down. And that shouldn't be controversial because we're not saying let out the people who are a danger and a threat to us. Nobody's saying that.

I suppose some are concerned that if leniency becomes the norm for women that those that are vulnerable, for example, could be coerced, those that are susceptible to being initiated into crime, for example, that that could happen. Yeah, it's interesting that you use the word leniency because I don't see anything lenient about a system that works well. And we need a system that works well and makes sense. So no one is saying be lenient on anything. But let's make our justice system make sense. Let's make sure we're not putting people in prison whose children have played truant. But leniency for me, I don't see much leniency going on. I see the opposite.

Lady Edwina Grosvenor, thank you very much, who is a justice system reformer and her pioneering project is Hope Street in Southampton and also a member on the board of the Women's Justice Board. Jules and Scarlett are still here with me. Jules, how has life been for you since leaving prison that's about five years ago? It was about five years ago.

I'm in the best position mentally, physically, with work now than I ever have been, but it's definitely been challenging. When I first got released, I was doing really well with my work and I threw kind of everything into work. But at home with family and with friends, I was really, really struggling. I really struggled with conversations.

It was really challenging and I didn't really understand that that was gonna happen. I wasn't really prepared for that. But I feel right now, yeah, I'm in the best place I've ever been and life is really good. That is a very positive note. And for you Scarlett? I, like most women, like Lady Edwina was saying, was released homeless and jobless. I had to go and live with my mom, who was very supportive.

I was very angry and I knew that that's a very consuming emotion and was never going to get me anywhere. And so I invested all into the research that I do now as a Churchill Fellow and understanding emotional regulation, metacognition, how we regulate our own thinking, our own emotions to produce better behaviors because ultimately crime is about behavior, it's a bad decision but for me it's not the what decision, it's why. What drove that behavior in the first place and so now as a church or fellow I'm researching how we apply movement in adolescent mental health settings so whether that's in schools, in community settings or even in clinical pathways, how we can help them understand that your body helps your brain

with its cognitive function, with its emotional regulation, and maybe you don't make such impulsive decisions in irrational states. It's all so interesting. We've heard from the government, former prisoners, people who have worked in prisons and philanthropists, and everyone seems to agree on the effect of the current prison system on women and also that it needs to change. It's unusual to have this much consensus on an issue. Scarlett Roberts, Jules Rowan, Vanessa Frayke-Harris, Claire Wilson, Lucy Russell and Lady Edwina Grovener. Thank you so much. Also thanks to Alex Davies Jones, Parliamentary Undersecretary

of State at the Ministry of Justice. Thanks so much for listening to this edition of Woman's Hour and please do join me for weekend Woman's Hour tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi, we're the VanTulaken, the identical twin doctor VanTulaken's Chris and Zand. In What's Up Docs, we're diving into the messy, complicated world of health and wellbeing. We are living in the middle of what I would call

a therapeutic revolution, but it can sometimes be hard to know what's really best for us. Do I need to take a testosterone supplement? How can I fix my creaky knees? Why do I get hangry? Is organic food actually better for me? We're gonna be your guides through the confusion.

We'll talk to experts in the field and argue about what we've learned and share what we've learned and maybe disagree a fair bit too. No, we won't. What's up, Docs from BBC Radio 4? Listen now on BBC Sounds.