Can you imagine having over two decades of real-world experience navigating the twists and turns of the justice system?
In April this year, Pauline was appointed as a member of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody, the IAPDC, which provides expert independent advice to the Government concerning their legal duties to protect prisoners' rights and ensure minimum standards.
Meet Pauline McCabe who'll take you on a journey through her fascinating career, providing firsthand insights into the inner workings of the justice sector. From her role on the Northern Ireland Policing Board to her current position as an international criminal justice development advisor, McCabe's rich experiences bring you inside the world of justice through her privileged viewpoint.
Brace yourself as we dive into the troubling realities of Northern Ireland's prison system. We shine a light on the investigation into the death of Colin Bell in custod and the systemic, entrenche issues at play.
Pauline frankly faces up to her frustrations with the lack of rehabilitation and outlines her efforts to improve conditions for young inmates and women.
Journey with us as we explore the intricacies of prison reform - it's a testament to the complexities of change management within this sector.
The conversation then takes us across continents, delving into the world of international criminal justice.
Hear about Pauline's experiences in Central Asia and Bahrain, where she made vast strides in prison reform and played a pivotal role in developing the Bahrain Police and Prisoner Ombudsman Office.
As we wrap up, McCabe leaves us mulling over the need for prison system reform for women, her staunch opposition to violence against women, and the importance of staying in touch with organisation like the View Magazine.
This episode is a rare glimpse into the challenges and solutions of the justice system.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
Can you imagine having over two decades of real-world experience navigating the twists and turns of the justice system?
In April this year, Pauline was appointed as a member of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody, the IAPDC, which provides expert independent advice to the Government concerning their legal duties to protect prisoners' rights and ensure minimum standards.
Meet Pauline McCabe who'll take you on a journey through her fascinating career, providing firsthand insights into the inner workings of the justice sector. From her role on the Northern Ireland Policing Board to her current position as an international criminal justice development advisor, McCabe's rich experiences bring you inside the world of justice through her privileged viewpoint.
Brace yourself as we dive into the troubling realities of Northern Ireland's prison system. We shine a light on the investigation into the death of Colin Bell in custod and the systemic, entrenche issues at play.
Pauline frankly faces up to her frustrations with the lack of rehabilitation and outlines her efforts to improve conditions for young inmates and women.
Journey with us as we explore the intricacies of prison reform - it's a testament to the complexities of change management within this sector.
The conversation then takes us across continents, delving into the world of international criminal justice.
Hear about Pauline's experiences in Central Asia and Bahrain, where she made vast strides in prison reform and played a pivotal role in developing the Bahrain Police and Prisoner Ombudsman Office.
As we wrap up, McCabe leaves us mulling over the need for prison system reform for women, her staunch opposition to violence against women, and the importance of staying in touch with organisation like the View Magazine.
This episode is a rare glimpse into the challenges and solutions of the justice system.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
Welcome to the View Magazine's Rebel Justice podcast. This week we had the privilege to interview Pauline McCabe, who has worked with the justice system for more than two decades. In her many and varied roles across the globe, she's investigated thousands of prisoner complaints, serious incidents and deaths in custody. Pauline has worked as part of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, as prisoner ombudsman and, most recently, as an international criminal justice development advisor. She's also an honorary professor of the University of Ulster, where her specialist subjects are youth justice, women in the criminal justice system and deaths in detention. In April this year, pauline was appointed as a member of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody, the IAPDC, which provides expert independent advice. Pauline, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for inviting me.
Speaker 1:Well, we're very excited to have you in our podcast, so we're going to start with something quite general. What first got you interested in working with the justice system?
Speaker 2:Well, when I first started my career the first 20 years of my career, in fact, was spent working in the private sector. I started my career working for British Leyland I was the first female industrial relations manager in British Leyland in the 1970s and actually it was brilliant training for everything that followed. And I went on to work as a director of human resources in the health service and then went through lots of different sectors before finally having my own training business. And along the way I was also working on projects in Africa related to extreme poverty, and it's probably fair to say that those were the. That was the bit of my work that I really enjoyed the most, but I then actually stumbled into criminal justice.
Speaker 2:So in the late 90s my husband and I moved to Northern Ireland, where he comes from. In a moment of madness I agreed to go and live beside the sea and count you down, and it was at the time there was still a conflict in Northern Ireland and I'd taken three young children there and I found myself wondering what on earth I'd done. And the first Christmas that we were there, we were having a little party at my husband's father's house, and it was it was a beautiful Christmas Eve it was. There was snow on the ground and I just went to sit outside and sit on the wall for a moment to look at the snow and I heard the noise of footsteps coming down the road, and coming towards me were four soldiers walking along as they do, two by two, and as they passed I said to them happy Christmas, which was actually quite unusual because it was a very Catholic area and it wasn't normal for people in the context of the conflict to talk to soldiers. And because they recognised the English accent, they stopped and they chatted to me and they told me one of them told me that he actually was based in a barracks in somewhere called Tamworth, near Sutton, coalfield, where I had been living before I moved to Northern Ireland, and he told me also that his father had died that year and that his mum would be on her own that Christmas Eve and how sad he was. And as I watched them walk into the distance and thought of my own little babies in the house behind me with all the Christmas trees and gifts and so on, I was just struck by the overwhelming sadness of it all.
Speaker 2:And not long after that we got the Good Friday peace agreement. And also there was a piece on the front of the Belfast Telegraph, the national newspaper, by the Chief Constable, ronny Flanagan at the time, saying it is time for all of us to get out of our chairs and to do something. And shortly after that they were advertising for people to join the policing board and I applied and I was appointed. I was an obvious appointment because I was an English girl but from a Catholic background, so I ticked a lot of boxes. But the policing board had a really, really important role to do, because a huge part of the peace process in Northern Ireland was to build cross community confidence in the integrity of the police and to build a police service that was truly human rights focused and that was accepted by everyone. So I was on that board for eight years and I learned a huge amount. I mean I learned a lot about policing. I met a lot of victims, both of the conflict and of crime. I learned about oversight, I learned about performance management and, crucially, I was involved in implementing a change management program for the first time, not in the private sector but in the criminal justice sector.
Speaker 2:So when I finished at the policing board I was totally then committed to working in criminal justice but also hugely involved in Northern Ireland politics, and I saw an advertisement for the prisoner ombudsman role and I was really interested in prisons because I always thought it was a mistake that prisons were not included in the Good Friday Agreement, given that we had you know it was a heart a Catholic Protestant conflict. We had a predominantly Protestant prison service and, in common with many conflicts, a lot of the conflict was played out in prison and to this day actually continues to be to some extent, and there had been no emphasis on prison reform, prison change, and we had a very, very security focused prison system because they had had years and years of obviously you know, looking after prisoners who had been engaged in the conflict and that defined really the culture, the approach, the attitudes and so on. So I became prisoner ombudsman. I had never worked in prisons before, I knew really very little about them, but I just thought that it was something that I would like to do and on day one I walked into a really shocking death in custody. Colin Bell had died shortly before I started and I investigated that death and I have to say that investigating deaths is a very quick learning curve.
Speaker 2:We used to put families completely at the heart of our investigation. So the first thing we would do, as soon as suitable after the funeral, we would invite the families to talk to us, and I would continue to talk to families always throughout the full investigation. So I would hear the story. I would hear the story of the person who had died in prison and it would be so hard for families, because it's always hard to lose someone you love. But losing someone you love where you don't know what their last days, their last hours were like, you don't know why or what happened or what went wrong and so on, and they would have lots of questions and at the heart of our reports was always answering the family questions.
Speaker 2:But as you got to know them and you got to know the story, we used to investigate not only in Northern Ireland.
Speaker 2:We would investigate both the prison elements of the you know, everything related to how the person was cared for in prison, and also the healthcare, everything related to healthcare.
Speaker 2:We would do it in a very joined up way and so you got the picture of this person and as I went on to learn everything that I now know about the people who end up in prison and so on. In many instances, you were struck by the fact that it was always going to be this. They were always going to end up in prison because they had so, so many things going against them, and so on. So at the end of the day, I found that I loved working in prison. Of everything I've ever done in my career, it's the thing that I found most interesting, most rewarding, most challenging, at times, most heartbreaking, and it has been. You know, it's been wonderful for me that, since completing my role as ombudsman, I've been able to work internationally in lots of countries that are trying to put in place monitoring and oversight mechanisms and are trying to address issues like torture in places of detention, sexual and gender based violence, the treatment of women and so on, and that is what I continue to do and it's what I love to do.
Speaker 1:Wow, it's remarkable how you got into it as well, and something that you never thought of doing before. I'm very intrigued about your work as prisoner-obnisman. I know it was from 2008, 2013,. This was still at the Northern Ireland policing board. What was it like practically to have that position?
Speaker 2:Well, I moved into this role after the policing board and on the day that I arrived, a few weeks beforehand, a young man called Colin Bell had died in MacGabery prison. And Colin Bell had a history of mental health problems and he had been held in what they call a safer cell for his own protection before he died. And then he finally died by suicide in that cell. And on the face of it, people thought there probably wouldn't be much to investigate here, and the reality could not have been more different, because when we actually investigated his death, what we found that before he died he had been in that safer cell for six days and that during those six days he'd actually left the cell in total for four hours. That was pretty much the extent of his human contact. He was on 15-minute checks because that was a requirement of the arrangements that had been put in place to keep him safe. In fact, those checks amounted to no more than people looking through the door flap to see he was still alive. Basically and I was able because there were cameras in that cell I was able to watch the whole of Colin's six days in that cell. I mean, he'd previously done up to 14 days at a time in that cell and he would spend all day long walking up and down that cell in a little what they called anti-ligature gown and at times he was so cold overnight because he didn't have any blankets because of the risk of making ligatures. He was so cold he was wrapping his legs in toilet paper and because I was talking to his mum all the time, I had to tell his mother that his son had been wrapping his legs in toilet paper to keep warm. And on the night that he died he during that day made multiple attempts to die by hanging and held up the material he was going to use that he'd managed to get hold of. To the camera multiple times, but unfortunately the staff who were caring for Colin were in a what we called a pod and there was also a camera in the pod and the staff, because it was never looked at, had completely forgotten that that camera was in the pod. So we were able to also have a look at the pod and see what was happening when Colin died and the staff were playing on the computer, smoking, taking it in turns to lie down and sleep on a makeshift bed and not checking the screen, and in actual fact, when Colin finally did die, it was 38 minutes before somebody glanced at the screen and realised that he was lying in his cell, having actually died.
Speaker 2:So we wrote reports, we made many recommendations, one of which was that the Governor and Deputy Governor should be removed from post, and that was just unheard of as a recommendation. In a funny way, I'd come from the public sector and we'd found so many systemic problems. It seemed obvious to me that there was a huge leadership issue and this was the thing to do. But other people were obviously quite taken about that at the time and, knowing what I know now, I understand why. But crucially, the really, really important thing was that it was presented in public and it really captured the public interest and people in Northern Ireland were really taken aback and asking the question what on earth is happening in our prisons? And, crucially, it was debated at the Northern Ireland Assembly and all of the political parties were really really engaged in the discussion, which was good, because, whatever their constituents' preferences were around, law and order and throwing people and locking away the cure, whatever they were in one voice that this just was not acceptable in Northern Ireland in 2008 and, as a result of that, the subsequent Hillsborough Agreement, which was the next stage of the peace process where justice was fully devolved to Northern Ireland. All of the political parties signed up to prism reform. So I always think that it's amazing really that Colin Bell's legacy is probably it's fair to say the Northern Ireland prison reform programme that followed.
Speaker 2:I went on to investigate many, many other deaths and I went on to investigate, as you've said, thousands of complaints and incidents and as part of my role I would spend a huge amount of time in prison. So we had male prisons, we had a female prison, we had prison for 18 to 21 year olds and when I first started we actually had some people in that prison who were actually between 15 and 18, but we took with all of the other. We worked very much in partnership in Northern Ireland. So I worked closely with the Equality Commission, the Human Rights Commission and between us and with a very, very motivated and proactive justice minister. We arranged for all of them to actually leave the prison and to go to the youth centre where their needs could be met much more effectively. They were really angry at the time because at the time you were allowed to smoke in prison but not allowed to smoke in the young people's centre. They wrote furious letters to me asking me what I'd done, I mean over the period.
Speaker 2:It's fair to say that I, on the one hand, I just learnt so much about what works and what doesn't work in prison.
Speaker 2:So on the one hand, it was incredibly rewarding to be able to play a part, because the office developed a real reputation for independence, even the you know, there was still a lot of political prisoners both sides of the house in prison and everybody got to know that if they brought something to the office that wasn't true, it would be found to be untrue.
Speaker 2:And if they brought something to the office that was true, that we worked incredibly hard to do our job properly and we weren't afraid to say anything that we found to be true and to make appropriate recommendations. But the other thing was that I became incredibly frustrated by the fact that I would constantly think there has to be a better way of doing this. Now, when you look at regime delivery, when you look at the quality of what we were delivering, that would really truly help to rehabilitate, I just felt that there has to be a better way of doing it and actually we played a huge role then in trying to inform the prison reform process, but also whenever we made recommendations, dovetailing them into the reform process to try and make the whole thing as efficient and effective as we possibly could, and a lot of progress was made. It certainly wasn't perfect, but a lot of good things came as a result of it.
Speaker 1:So the prison reform in Northern Ireland. I can see you've done a lot. You've had a hand on a lot of achievements in progress. What do you think was your biggest achievement in terms of this progress and what were the main things you learned from your time in Northern Ireland?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest achievement of the Ombudsman's office was the fact that we got that on the back of the death of Colin Bell, that we got the public debate, that we got that. We got the public engagement. The public started to look at things they hadn't thought about before and, crucially, the fact that it was debated in Parliament and that we had political parties on every side. I don't think it happens too often that everybody is joining up to say we actually have to do something about this. It's not right. So that was probably one of the biggest achievements in the Northern Ireland context. I mean, what I learned from it probably the biggest thing I learned from it actually goes back to the policing board and the thing that I feel is more, most relevant to my interest today, when I look at the situation that we currently face here in England and Wales, I think it's just wrong that we keep talking about our expectations for further hikes in the prison population and that that is the focus we even have. You know, we have parties on both sides coming out to tell us how they will in fact, provide the prison places to make that possible. Well, I think that the focus should be on how we are actually going to reduce the number of people in prison. I mean, if we look at the fact that we have 141 people per 100,000 in prison, compared as a matter of interest, with Northern Ireland, who have 97 now, france 105, germany 67, I think Norway 57, then it makes human and financial sense that what we should really be focusing all our efforts on is how we get the prison population down. So, at a sort of government level, I think the need for a holistic, joint up into the departmental government approach has never been greater. I think what we should be focusing on is where we know we can achieve much better outcomes by investing and having an urgency around community disposals with attached requirements related to mental health, related to addiction problems and so on. That should be an absolute priority the regime that we deliver in prison, crucially getting resettlement right and investing in making sure that every time, we're giving people the best possible chance of not reoffending, because you know what we know what good practice looks like. We've got thousands of unimplemented recommendations and, at the end of the day, the challenge is doing it and it is challenging, but the bottom line is that we know, we have the evidence and still we keep making or the government keeps making decisions which make the problem worse, not better.
Speaker 2:So the biggest thing I learned in Northern Ireland actually came round to change management. Because, putting that to one side, if we accept where we are now, what I think is missing is a really good implementation plan. We had a white paper in 2021. It was far from perfect, but if everything in that white paper that was a two year commitment and there were really important things relating to the provision of education, to work experience, to other purpose for activity, to all of the areas that we know can actually give people hope, can actually persuade them that actually there might be a different way of doing it when they get out of prison, can give them a chance to address the issues that actually cause them to offend in the first place. But the really important thing was that everybody everywhere knew what their role was, knew what was expected and knew what we were working towards and, I think, what we need. And I should say that there are wonderful efforts being made by a lot of people and a lot of places to implement elements of the white paper, and the Chief Inspector has also commented on the fact that when you've got an amazing governor. They can achieve amazing things, even sometimes when they are short of staff and everything else.
Speaker 2:So it's not just about staff.
Speaker 2:You know it's too easy to just say it's about staff shortages and so on, but at the end of the day, we need a clear plan. We need everybody to know when we talk about more education, what do we mean. You know, when we talk about time out of self purpose for activity and so on, prison governors are really clear. We're all really clear about what we're working towards. We know what good looks like. You know these are the goals, these are the targets. This is what we're going to be measured against, but not because we want to be caught out, but because then everybody knows what they're working towards and what we need to do.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure that we're doing that as well as we could. The other thing is that we have more than 3,000 people working in headquarters and area functions, and having that kind of plan means that we can make sure that the huge budget and resources that we've got associated with that headquarters activity, that we are directing it in the best possible way to achieve those outcomes that we've all said what we need to do. So that's where I hope what I've learned over the years, both in the public and private sector, that those are the kind of things I keep going on about and those are the things that I would like to try and help make a difference.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Pauline. Since your incredible work in Northern Ireland, you have worked across the globe as an international criminal justice development advisor in areas as diverse as Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. You've been in areas that are known to have harsh conditions for prisoners, such as Central Asia. Was there anything there that shocked you?
Speaker 2:I mean, I've been going to Central Asia for a very long time and I have. Whilst I've been there, I've had a lot of people who have come and spoken to me, sometimes confidentially, and, yes, I've heard over the years I've heard some quite shocking stories, particularly related to torture in pretrial detention and police facilities. You know there is a real journey going on in parts of Central Asia. For example, I was most recently working in Uzbekistan, where huge efforts are being made around prison reform and one of the prisons they were most concerned about the way in which prisoners were treated the international community was most concerned has been closed and they are now making strenuous efforts because they have a president who wants to improve the quality of delivery in the prison system. So I was there working.
Speaker 2:I have worked both with prison staff and with monitoring groups because the Ombudsman's office the powers have been extended so that they are able to do a lot more monitoring than they used to do, which is a hugely positive development. They're also really keen to sign up to the optional protocol in the near future. So they are very, very motivated because they want to get their house really properly in order before they do that. So it's been a huge journey. I think there's probably still a lot to do, but it's good to be part of something where you can really see very, very significant progress to be made. Everywhere that I've ever worked sort of certainly outside of the UK pretrial detention, what they will call interrogation processes and so on are always hugely challenging in terms of human rights and things that happen and oversight, transparency and the challenges of actually trying to change those things.
Speaker 1:You were also part of developing the Bahrain Police and Prisoner-Obsesmen Office that was set up in response to the report into excessive force during the Arab Spring popular uprisings in 2011. That must have been a very different experience. Could you tell us a bit about the time there and what did you learn?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was actually working in Bahrain over many, many years and I was there from the beginning, which was an interesting experience. The King of Bahrain you referred to the report. The King of Bahrain did something which some saw as very brave and some in his country saw as not very wise. But he, following the Arab Spring and following the conflict in Bahrain, he invited international experts in to carry out a full review of what had happened and to make recommendations. They produced this waltz and all report, which was quite brutal in terms of describing what had been happening there, not just during the period of the Arab Spring but prior to that, in terms of what was happening in policing and so on, and part of the recommendations were that they would set up a prisoner and police-Obsesmen office and they appointed someone to do that job. Taking on a job like that in a country, in Bahrain at that time, is quite a challenging thing to do, but the person who was appointed, who I got to know quite well, had huge integrity, albeit clearly he was working in a very particular political climate, but he'd gone all around the world looking for people who might help him and he actually ended up in Northern Ireland just as I was coming to the end of my fixed term appointment and he sort of saw a lot of commonality. I mean, they'd got a sheer sunny conflict they still have which in many ways, in terms of the challenge for the justice system, had a lot of similarities with the Northern Ireland conflict that I had been involved in.
Speaker 2:And he looked at the work of our office, looked at what we'd done and what we'd achieved and he asked if we would assist in starting up the office because there was, and still isn't, any other office in the Middle East that does what he does. So there wasn't a pool of investigators outside of policing to recruit. So they really were starting from the very beginning and the British government initially funded all of the work through the British Embassy. So I actually, over an extended period, basically helped them to recruit the staff, to train the staff, to put in place all the policies and procedures to advise and support and help them in doing that. And that included investigations where the allegations of torture. It included investigations of all debts in detention and it included prisoner complaint investigations. And he built a big team and he got the office up and running and over a period of time built significant public confidence in the independence of the office.
Speaker 2:It was interesting for me because when you have a problem in Northern Ireland, I could, like Colin Bell, I was able to go out and tell everybody. It's probably fair to say that if you're in the ombudsman in Bahrain and you did that you probably wouldn't with the ombudsman tomorrow. However, he did have great integrity and for me, working in those situations, I mean, my rule is always zero tolerance of wrongdoing. Doing nothing is not an option, but always understanding the context in which I'm operating and recognising that there are different ways of making progress, and sometimes that involves doing an awful lot more behind the scenes than doing it the way that we can do it. You know, in this wonderful country of ours where we have an absolute right to speak out without there ever being consequences.
Speaker 2:And as a result of that, what happened was a prison reform programme which was really quite spectacular in terms of, from a prison perspective, the actual quality of delivery in prison, and they also moved a lot to use community alternatives and so on. Some significant initiatives there built a really smart new women's prison and over time, made significant progress. I think policing is always challenging in a conflict situation where police are target. So I think that some of the issues this is just my opinion, but some of the issues around getting every police officer to behave in the right way every time will always be challenging in those contexts. But it was very interesting and rewarding to be part of that process. Very interesting to have to be creative and think differently about how change can sometimes be achieved.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Now, moving back closer to home, england, scotland and Wales currently have the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe. Why do you think is our rate higher than other similar countries, and what should we be doing to address the problem?
Speaker 2:We know the reasons why. We know the kind of things that impact on the number of people in prison. I mean one is clearly sentencing policy. I mean it is the case that sentencing you know the length of sentences now, the longest they've been in a decade and you know a lot of it comes back to politics, doesn't it? If people believed that the message people want to get is that tough on law and order and we will send people to prison to protect the public, and so on, then that does impact on things like sentencing policy. But we also have opportunities around community alternatives which, if they were adequate, the resource funded and available all over the country, that could have a positive impact.
Speaker 2:We have indeterminate sentences, which were abolished in 2012, but thousands of people still in prison. We have people who our job, at the end of the day, is to rehabilitate so that people can get out of prison. We have people on tariffs who were put into prison on a tariff of two years, who, 10 years later, is still in prison, and so on. So and then we have a massive remand population, which is really, really troubling, and we know the reasons for it, but it urgently, urgently needs to be addressed. So I think all those reasons, but I think it comes back to what I said earlier. Do you talk about the expected hikes in prison population or do you put all your efforts in energy into saying, actually it makes complete sense that what we want to do is reduce the prison population, reduce the number per 100,000-odd prison. That's what success really looks like, and then all the decisions we make in all of those areas are driven by that objective. At the moment that does not appear to be the case.
Speaker 2:It needs to change.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's frustrating because we can see solutions and people like you who have been working on it for so many years can see the solutions. It's just a matter of getting people to listen and implement them, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:Also, you know there is a really good financial argument, isn't it? Because if we look at the people who go to prison for less than 12 months and then we look at the rear fending rates within one year, you do have to ask what it's all about, don't you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and of course, the more people are in prison, the more they will die in custody.
Speaker 2:Of course, and the Rector Rector Report recently made exactly that point. He called it the global tragedy. And the bigger the prison population, the more people will die. And our record in keeping people safe, when you look at the most recent published statistics, where we had 313 deaths to June 23, which was a 9% increase, and we have a 52% increase in self-harming in the women prison population, those are not things to be proud of, are they?
Speaker 1:No, there's also a 25% prison deaths that are suicide, which is a horrifying figure. I was wondering why do you think the number is so high and what else could we be doing to address it? How could we maybe improve the prisoner's mental health, physical health, to maybe improve this awful situation?
Speaker 2:Based on all the complaints that I looked at and all the time I spent in prison and the 29 deaths I investigated, I think that time out of cell and purposeful activity is probably the most important factor of all and if we look at recent Inspectorate Reports and we look at the Criminal Justice Inspector's annual report, we can see that many prisons are doing very, very badly in that respect and we have prisoners locked up for very, very, very long periods. I mean, recently we had the new head of the IMB talking about young people. She's only been in office a month and she came out and talked about the fact that we've got young people, elizabeth Davis. I'm talking about 19 to 23 hours a day. They're locked up in cell. I mean, what good could come from that?
Speaker 2:My experience when I was on businessman was that if you have people with mental health problems and they are locked up for long stretches and I don't think anybody would really argue with this it does no good whatsoever and I found it to be a factor in many deaths that I looked at. It also impacts the return on investment in mental health services and addiction services and the things that we're trying to get right in prison. The Chief Inspector has talked about the frustration of some of the health services and rehabilitation services that they can't get the people to work with because they're locked up. If you have an addiction problem, I've seen examples where their only ambition is how they're going to get more drugs or how they're going to get other people's prescription medicines and so on. If you've got anger management problems, you get more angry, more frustrated.
Speaker 2:And if we think that prison is about encouraging people to have responsibility for themselves, providing good role models, giving them the opportunities to do things that can change what will happen when they leave prison, then I think that the absolute antithesis of that is locking people up for 18 to 22 hours a day. I think we need really clear goals around that as well. It's not just oh, we are doing more education or we have people out for longer. I think it has to be much, much clearer than that what the expectations are. We know what good practice looks like, so I do believe that a really busy raging, where you come out of your cell in the morning and you spend your day doing work or education or sport or other leisure activities, vocational training that that is actually not maybe not all the answer, but it's a huge part of keeping people safe as well as rehabilitating them, so we've stopped them coming back to prison and we impact the huge size of the prison population.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. You've recently been appointed as a member of the Independent Advisory Panel on Debt and Custody, co-sponsored by the UK MOG, home Office and Department of Health. The panel's role is to give expert, independent advice to the Ministerial Board on Debt and Custody. Pauline, you bring a wealth of experience to the panel. You have worked with the justice system not just across the UK but globally. How do you feel your work in Northern Ireland and around the world has prepared you for this, and what areas do you hope your expertise and advice can really make a difference?
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing to say is that I'm really pleased to have been appointed to the panel. I've only just started, so I'm still sort of getting to know my new colleagues and getting to look at the work that the panel has done before and looking at their work plans moving forward. I've been hugely impressed by the expertise and knowledge experience commitment to the people on that panel who worked tirelessly in this area because they really care, so it will be a real privilege to work with them. Moving forward, the panel is in a period of transition now because there are several new appointments coming on board, so it's also great getting to know new colleagues who are joining.
Speaker 2:What is really striking is how people bring such very, very different areas of experience to it. So really my hope is that the contribution I can make, because a huge part of it is advising and supporting the efforts to try and achieve change. Everybody who's doing this kind of wants the best, but it's about how we actually make it happen. So I think the things I've talked about already, which are really around implementation, blockages and challenges I hope that that is one of the areas, based on both my private sector experience of change management but also my policing board experience and, to some extent, the Northern Ireland Prison Service. I hope very much that those are the kind of things that I can bring to the table and in terms of influencing work plans, moving forward and priorities for things that the panel does. So I'm really looking forward to the next phase. I think it's a great opportunity to be able to contribute to that and I'll certainly be doing my best.
Speaker 1:Pauline, thank you so much. As a final thought, I was wondering if you had people throughout all these years of your career who have impacted you and why, and if you have any final thoughts of how we can make society better and end this pandemic of violence against the prisoners.
Speaker 2:The people who have made the biggest impression on me in the early days when I was working in Africa, but more recently in the criminal justice system, are some of the people that I have had the privilege to come across on the ground just doing their jobs day to day. When I used to speak at the graduation ceremonies for the police officers and then subsequently the new prison officers, I used to say to them I get really fed up. All around the world people say what a rotten job this is. Actually, every day you go to work you have a choice and you have the chance to touch people's lives and maybe to change them for the better. You know you can be the reason actually why they don't come back, why their children don't have their mum or dad on that revolving door in and out of prison and so on. You can be the reason for that. The people who stick out in my mind are just little examples of that.
Speaker 2:I remember one. I was at Hydebank Woods prison in Northern Ireland, which is a facility for 18 to 21 year olds. There was a young man at Hydebank Woods who had met a number of times, who had significant mental health problems and who had really terrible communication issues. I knew him as a ombudsman because he'd experienced bullying on a few occasions. On this beautiful sunny day I was walking across the grass at Hydebank Woods and there was a fabulous female officer who worked in Hydebank Woods who had persuaded them to allow her to start a little project where she had pet dogs. In the middle of the grass there was a bench and this young man had his poor wee arms were cut from top to bottom from all the self-harming and she sat on the bench and he had his arm round this little dog that he was stroking and the two of them were chatting animatedly and laughing. I had to look twice and think is that him? Is that really him? I just thought those are the moments that remind you why you do what you do and make it absolutely worthwhile. People like her are the absolute heroines.
Speaker 2:We've got a huge number of really good people wanting to do the right things and it's our job to make sure that we create the conditions that mean that they can do that. The young officers coming in are actually delighted with what the job's about, not disappointed. So on the question of how we can make things better, I think that probably the one point that I would make that they're talking about about holistic approach and joint up into government approach and so on, and logically, we want to move to a place where we are not looking at how we address offending, but we're looking at how we prevent it in the first place, and that really is about government policy in every area and it's about us really, really wanting to do the things that will address the causes of offending. So that extends to what education looks like, how we deal with young people who are excluded from school, what we do with the care system, community services for mental health and addiction. All of those things impact.
Speaker 2:And I suppose, if you want to talk about what we need to do, you can look no further than the great human rights defender, nelson Mandela, who just basically said it's in our hands to make a better world for all of us who live in it. And I think all of those, all of those who want to do that, particularly in the criminal justice system and in prison, it's just about sort of hanging on in there, having courage and continuing to do what you believe is right.
Speaker 1:And this concludes our podcast for today. I hope you learned as much as we did from Pauline about the way the prison system works and the way it could be improved. We are very grateful for this insightful conversation. We at the View oppose all violence against women, and this episode shows that the system requires reform now. Please join TheViewMagazineorguk and stay in touch via our social media networks. Don't miss our quarterly digital magazine to stay on top of all the latest news and insights from the people at the frontline of justice reform.