Episode 4: Can Women with Lived Experience Be Part of the Solution? - Part 2

The VIEW Magazine CiC 

Presents

Rebel Justice Podcasts : Episode 4: Women with Lived Experience Part 2

Madalena speaks to  model and mental health campaigner Naomi Harlow, activist and former prisoner Clare Barstow, prison law solicitor and expert Rob Welsh - from our sponsors, Instalaw, a leading prison and criminal defence law firm - and former prisoner and one of the founders of The View, Farah Damji.

Today we continue to look at whether women with lived experience can be part of the solution when it comes to effective policy and stopping the cycle of crime and reducing reoffending. 

Can Women with Lived Experience Be Part of the Solution? - Part 2

We continue our series on participation of women with lived experience who can be part of the solution when it comes to effective policy and stopping the cycle of crime and reducing reoffending.

 Host of the Rebel Justice podcast, Madalena Alberta speaks to  model and mental health campaigner Naomi Harlow, activist and former prisoner Clare Barstow, prison law solicitor and expert Rob Walsh - from our sponsors, Instalaw, a leading prison and criminal defence law firm - and former prisoner and one of the founders of The View, Farah Damji.

In this episode we explore the lack of openness to new alternatives to imprisonment. Previously Rob questioned why prisoners didn't receive training etc in prison and what qualifications people can get while they are there. Prisons must provide education, learning and skills  for prisoners serving sentences. Clare also mentioned that there is currently a huge shortage of prison psychologists and prison psychiatrists and that it takes six months to even get a referral from a prison GP and then another 18 months to get any treatment.

Naomi said that because she has been working with children and young people, she saw an 8 year old child who refused to go to class. He was pained and angry that someone was ridiculing him for coming from a poor background. During the pandemic, the gap between the rich and the poor grew bigger. Although laptops are distributed in schools, they are limited in number and these gaps, between the children who have and those who don't, increased significantly. His reactions are a raw and direct response to fear and existential trauma. Support for hobbies is also an issue, as lack of money and lack of time prevent poorer children from interacting and having meaningful relationships with their peers. When we talk about choice and recovery, we have to meet people's basic needs, their mental health and emotional needs, for example, support in housing, work, self-advancement and education.

During Rob's experience representing women in prison, he found that there are many people in the prison system who need to re-establish positive family links which is an important thing, and they need to be aware of the charities and assistance available to them. But many will encounter difficulties with leaflets and information about services, loans etc.  Farah mentioned there are serious mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. These can be daunting for those who feel very vulnerable. But if someone is willing to come along with you and help your re-entry into society together, it can make a huge difference.

Everyone needs to be listened to, to feel safe, to be loved. That's why it's absolutely vital to understand how people in the system feel and for women with lived experience to be involved in the healing process of other women.

With thanks to all our panellists and the many people who made Someone’s Daughter possible. The campaign continues, globally, so watch our social

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the View Magazine's Rebel Justice Podcast. This podcast is part of our someone's daughter campaign, the campaign to change the way you see justice. This podcast was recorded during photo London in September, 2021. Photo London is an exceptional art and activism project where world famous and acclaimed photographers have taken photographs of women who have been involved in the criminal justice system. Some are survivors, some are lawyers, some are activists, and others are leading women in public life who've taken an interest in all of the processes from charging an arrest from incarceration to rehabilitation. Today we bring you the second part of three of this podcast included in our Someone's Daughter podcast series. We will continue looking at whether women would live the experience can be part of the solution when it comes to effective policy in stopping the cycle of crime and reducing re-offending. Today's panel includes model and mental health campaigner, Naomi Harlow, activist and former prisoner, Claire Barstow, Prison law solicitor and expert Rob Welch from our sponsors Insta Law, a leading prison and criminal defense law firm. And finally, former prisoner and one of the founders of the View Farra dg. Thank you all for coming. Rob. We ended the previous part talking about the very important matter of a seeming lack of openness for new alternatives to incarceration. What is your view on this matter?

Speaker 2: 1:35

I think, um, it, it boils down to political issues and, and, and essentially parties wanting to, to keep and maintain their popularity with the general public. Um, because the reality is there isn't a great deal of sympathy for people in prison. Uh, and fenders in the general public is, has certainly been my experience in other forums when I've spoken to people. Um, and I think because of that, ultimately political parties are, are frightened of, of losing votes and so forth that they are deemed to be treating, uh, inmates, you know, and so forth, leniently, when of course that isn't the reality at all. And, and that's why these events and talks are so important to try and educate the wider public as, as much as anything else that people do need help. And there are other alternatives to prison and it's not, you know, an easy ride because we are suggesting these alternatives to people. Um, one of the, one of the, the, the things that crops up with other people I've spoken about a lot is regarding to help people get training in prison and so forth and, and qualifications people can undertake. And that's a fundamentally important part of the prison system as I view it. Um, when I've spoken to people about the kind of qualifications some people have obtained in prison, they have said to me, Well, why, why should they get the money for those qualifications? I have to pay for that when I, when I'm out. And my answer to that is, Well, you don't need the help. It's, it's, it's akin to giving people disability allowance. We give it to people who need it and, and the people who need it are the people who have suffered trauma who are in prison, you know, who, who who need investing in. And that's the only way to try and help help people break this cycle, coming back to prison again and again. Um, but of course the place in my view for that to take place isn't in prison in the first place. They shouldn't be in there. We should be allocating that 40,000 pound a year that we would've spent keeping people in prison. We should be allocating that to them when they're outta prison and, and helping them obtain work or meaningful qualifications to sustain them going forward for, for years and years. And, and 40,000 pounds to people would go a very long way if it was given, you know, more directly to the more entrusted to somebody, he was going to use it very wisely. And Naomi, you made a point that this all comes down to essentially bad planning. I think it does.

Speaker 1: 4:17

And Claire,

Speaker 3: 4:19

Yes, Yes, I totally agree. I mean, I'm part of the, um, an ambassador for the Hardman Trust and they give grants for education, learning and skills to where prisoners who've done a long sentence. Um, but again, they can only touch a a few. And I've been in prison and given talks and also to the Supreme Court and um, probation, uh, et cetera. But I think it, and going in and giving talks in, in, not just in England, but in Scotland too. And I think the issue is that, um, you know, there should be a, a mandatory, instead of charities having to, um, being able to give a few grants, it should be almost mandatory that somebody is given, um, some money for every, uh, prisoner is accessed upon release so they can, um, access some either equipment for, for work or, or training or education in some form that they might need, they can't do inside. Um, I think if, if that money was earmarked it, you know, it would, in the long term it would save, um, thousands of pounds cuz then they would be less likely to end up back in that situation.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Farra, do you think this is a viable solution?

Speaker 4: 5:37

Um, no, because there will always be issues about, um, the prisoner is using it for something elicited or there's some fraud going on or there's something, you know, dodgy at it. And then I I think there's two, there's too many, um, possible kind of bonds in that situation. What I, what I think we need to do is we need to look at, there's a really interesting comment, Byum, so I can't see her name. And she's saying that they're funded to do, uh, to provide rehabilitation services. So it costs 2000, but they're only been given 1000. So, so there are some really, really brilliant women centers that are doing really good work. But, but my worry about that model is that you extend the costal estate, you then bring it into the community. If you, if you suddenly give a charity money and control over a prisoner's life and what they're supposed to do and where they're supposed to go and report, um, suddenly you, you begin to massively increase while state surveillance and also the cast real estate. So you, you bring prison into the community basically. And I think it's dangerous cuz some of the women's centers work very closely. Not all. I mean, for the most part that I think they're really good and they're really useful, but I I I think some of them work very, very closely with Ministry of Justice and they are not funded sustainably. They have to go cap in hand every single year. Their funding is not on a, on a secure footing. So they have to go every year begging to the Ministry of Justice or the local authority or the police and crime commissioner seeking finance, you know, in, in order to sustain what they're doing. And, and I don't think this is a sustainable way. And then many of them don't allow children. So if you have a child and you have an appointment with your probation officer at a women's center and you don't show up, you can get record. And many of them are quite punitive and, and there's this whole thing called pink punishment where they sort of dress up women's centers to look lovely and it's allery and pink and mice inside, but actually they're coercive. You, you can't force someone to rehabilitate. You know, it, it's done through desistance, it's done through relationships, it's done through a relational agreement and a contract with society that you want to be a better person. You don't want to do those things again. So I think money could be allocated again in this justice reinvestment model, um, and preemptive solutions where we're funding things like mental health, parenting classes, cooking classes, um, you know, for, for women who are having, who are entering the criminal justice system rather than spending all of the money in this intensive prison intervention that isn't working. So, so I think, I think there's a danger in, I absolutely agree with Naomi and Rob, but when you, when you say that the money could be better spent, um, and, and not spent in prisons and absolutely, I mean there's such a huge shortage of prison psychologists and prison psychiatrists at the moment. It's taking six months, um, to even get the referral from the prison GP to see, to see a woman in prison at the moment. And then it's a further 18 months to get any treatment. So that's two years of your sentence done before you even see a GP or, or before you even see a psychiatrist or a mental health expert. So I, I don't know what the, I think better funded probation services. I think non-coercive women's centers, I think preemptive solutions before people or just as people are entering the criminal justice system would be, would be useful. And we also need to look at, and here in Ireland, there was a very recent survey about where, who are the people that are filling up the prisons, what areas, and obviously Ireland's much smaller than England, but um, they, they actually did it on kind of a post code basis and the people that were filling up the prisons came from the most impoverished areas. So if you put funds directly into those areas, into community centers, into women's centers, into domestic abuse, into understanding trauma, I think you would see a reduction in those people going into the criminal justice system. And that needs to be done. I mean, again, in England, if you look at who's going to prison, it's mostly young black men and young, lower, lower class white men. So we need to look at why, what's wrong in those communities that those people are making those choices, you know?

Speaker 1: 9:57

And how do you see this working as a way forward with some of your clients, Naomi?

Speaker 5: 10:02

Um, yeah, I think, I mean, ultimately because I've always worked with children and young people, I think if we're going to really strip it back, the work needs to be done with them. So, you know, if you have traumatized children, and I've always said this, that you know that whenever I look at an eight, an eight year old who's refusing to go into the classroom and who is distressed, who's, um, angry, who's lashing out, um, who comes from a background of deprivation who doesn't have access to support with their education, so they come to school to educate. We saw that particularly in the pandemic that that, um, that gap between the haves and the have nots was significant. And I'm not just talking about financial haves, I'm talking about parents who can engage with education, parents who are confident enough to teach their children access to, um, things like laptops. So that can do home learning. Um, I know lots of schools gave out laptops, but there's a limit to how much that, um, that they have. Um, and that, that gap is, has significantly increased. So if you have a child like that at eight who is displaying all of these behaviors, um, there is a stronger likelihood that if nothing is done to support that child, but that child at 1830, whatever is going to, and I don't want to say make choices because I don't feel that it's always a choice. I don't feel that that's always a fair, um, a fair suggestion really because choice, choice to me is something that you, a choice is something you make when you have two equally possible options. You know, a choice is do I want fish and chips for dinner or do I want takeaway for d you know, that's a choice. What we are talking about and what I'm talking about with my children, those aren't choices that they're making. Those are primitive, immediate responses to trauma, to fear, to survival. Um, so if we're talking about adults who are adult women, particularly who are in involved in theft drugs, prostitution, we're not talking necessarily about choices. We're talking about surviving. And so if we have a system where I, like, I always compare it. So obviously we'll all have seen that the Maslow's hierarchy of need. And if you've got somebody who at the very bottom of that hasn't got food, shelter, and all of those basics there doesn't have access to money, doesn't have access to always heating or you know, all of these kind of things. I've worked with so many children who their heating and lighting is done on cards. The card runs out in the middle of the night and that's it until this next, the next amount of money. That's, that's it. If you have people who don't have those things, we cannot be expecting them to reach the, the highest point of that, which is this self actualization, which is being the best version of themselves that they can be, which is being a, a constructive product of society, contributing and being engaged with the society in the community around them. If we are depriving children, young people and adults of basics. Um, and you know, going up into the next level of emotional support of, um, of, you know, hobbies. You know, so many of the children I work with, they don't have hobbies. They don't have things that they do for fun. And the reason that they don't is because there's no money, there's no time, but there's also no emotional room for any of that stuff. So stuff like the things that we all take for granted that children have, like friends, clubs, social life, all of those things, they, they're too exhausted by all of that. They can't make engaging, um, meaningful relationships with their peers because their peers seem quite alien and other to them, a lot of the time, if you have two children where one is coming from a two parent family where people work, you know, they don't, money doesn't really come up as a major issue. There's always food, Nobody's shouting, everybody's relatively okay. And I'm not talking about perfect families, I'm talking about phone normal families. How is a child who's coming from a single parent family who's on benefits, who's worrying about literally about where their next meal comes from, who's parent or guardian might be suffering from depression or, uh, substance abuse or any number of other things. How are we expecting those two children to engage with each other and how are we possibly gonna be expecting the same outcomes from one child and this other child? Um, so when we're talking about choice and rehabilitation, it's not helping people, to me it's not helping people to, to make a different choice. It's helping people to see that there is a choice in the first place, but we have to give them stuff to be able to make that choice. You can't say to someone, make a choice to be a better person. Make a choice to be on this fifth rung where you are contributing to society because they will come back and say, Okay, right, but what am I eating and where am I living? You know, we have to meet people's basic needs, people's mental health and emotional needs, people's ability to, to connect with the society and the community around them before we can ever expect them to be there. And I think for a lot of the children and young people that I've worked with, what I see already in them is a disconnect from their life and say the life of the school. So schools try to foster, you know, especially primary school, foster this idea that we are a school community. But if you have children who don't recognize those people as anything like them, if they feel outside of that, if they feel judged, which they sometimes are, if I'm perfectly honest, how are they going? Why are we expecting them to want to care for the community? Because they're seeing it as a community that that judges them, that they're not part of, that they're not welcoming. And when you get down through to to adults and that's same situation, it's exactly the same thing. They don't feel connected and part of this society. So why would they be making choices to help people who don't like them, who don't understand them, who judge them, who, who think they're, you know, bottom of the run. So yeah, I mean I think rehabilitation has to be there. It has to come with solid actual support in terms of housing, jobs, uh, self improvement, education, um, then we can start talking about choices because that's, that's, to me, that's three steps above where we're starting from.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Rob, with your experience of working with women, how do you feel they could be better prepared and supported upon their release?

Speaker 2: 16:36

Um, one of a big things that have come across in, in the women's estate and the male estate for that matter is, is reconnecting with family members. It's a bit of a niche area, but um, there's a lot of people who, who tend to lose contact with family members and, and some positive relations, um, during the prison system. Uh, and often it, it seems very simple to us, but they need somehow to reignite those relationships and, and sometimes it's a straightforward as they've moved, I dunno where they are. Um, and I tend to come across that quite quite a lot. And I think that could an important thing, um, for people across the business state to reestablish positive family connections, uh, and try and do that in good time before getting out. Cause again, quite a lot of time we see people come outta prison and fall back into the same negative peer groups and, and the cycle tends to begin again. So that's, that's something I know there are charities to assist with, but it's something which keeps cropping off in practice again and again and again. Um, and so it's evident to me that people in the prison state aren't quite aware of, of, of the charities and assistance they can get with that.

Speaker 1: 17:51

So do you think there isn't enough access and support for women leaving prisons for them to know what opportunities may be out there for them?

Speaker 2: 17:59

Very much so. I think there needs to be some more time spent when people enter the estate and before they leave the estate. I know the prison do give flies and information to people about services, um, with, with the numbers and so on and so forth. But a lot of people struggle with literacy and it's, it's, it's very difficult to understand stuff and um, and a lot of that gets lost in translation and just, they might as well have not been given it all, um, to, again, it comes down to this individual, um, focus on people at, at the start and before they leave, um, to see what they need specific help with.

Speaker 5: 18:37

Sorry to interrupt, but I think that's maybe something that the probation service could be, you know, and and they do and we do have some really great probation officers, but um, I've worked with a lot of, um, parents and if they have, you know, significant levels of, uh, like mental health issue, like anxiety, depression, you know, not, oh I'm not, we're not talking, you know, serious psychosis, but we're talking about anxiety and depression and, and all of those things. The idea that you'd say to somebody who's experiencing that, um, here's a leaflet for a group go to on your own to these people that you've never met before. Um, this will help you. Even that is quite a massive undertaking for somebody who's feeling really vulnerable. You know, we've all been in a situation where we are struggling with stuff at life and even like, you know, pop into the shop to get milk. You just, you know, I just can't face that's there, can't face seeing people. Well you are asking people to go out and join in with this, this this new thing, you know? And, and it's a big, big us. They almost need someone to go with them for the first time. Like, we are gonna this together, gonna see how this looks, you know, I'm gonna be right here. You know, so you'll have someone to talk to. I know these are like little things, but it, but it's massive. It makes a massive difference if you have people who will just go with you and hold your hand through the first terrifying steps back into society. If you like

Speaker 1: 20:06

Farra

Speaker 4: 20:07

At the end of your sentence, Naomi, me, you do have a bit of interaction with probation services. They do sign posts and they do supposedly, you know, put these things in place. But it's right at the end when you're so traumatized about coming out, as Rob said, those links, making those links with your kids, your family. Where am I gonna go? What's gonna happen to me? It's so badly planned. And all of the national mental health services, all of the court numbers, all of the um, domestic abuse agencies numbers are actually already on prisoners' pin phone numbers. They're all there. There's about 300 numbers, but they're not told that. And if you want to make the phone call to mind or to domestic or to women's aid, you're gonna be making it in a hallway with women passing you all the time with, with um, offices passing you all the time. And your business is then going to be currency on the wing cuz information in prison is currency. So in, in a very strange way, you know, they'll turn around to you and say, well, they can call mine, they can call women and say they can call the national domestic abuse line. But the way that that's set up without the information actually being passed on properly, um, again, it's sort of an obstacle, isn't it? And, and it's very hard to have, as you said, to make that first step and make that call and then to have the whole world listening and knowing that everyone's gonna know how you're feeling and everything is, is really hard. But, but, but I think this whole, this whole, um, I idea of there's a lot of talk of peer mentors now in prison who can actually kind of guide you through the first, through the first induction days. Um, but there's not much information about it at the moment.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Naomi, just taking it back to the theme of this talk, do you think women would live the experience, have a place in this conversation? Do you think women like Farra and Claire have anything to offer towards the transformation of the justice system?

Speaker 5: 22:01

Massively, as I said right at the beginning, um, I haven't been through the criminal justice system myself, um, but I have lived through sort of similar traumas to the ones that I'm talking about in terms of, you know, growth and poverty and, and all of those things. And what I noticed, and as I said at the beginning, I think if you have resolved some of those issues within yourself, if you're having, if you have access to, um, to not never separating them from what, from your practice, but being aware of how they might influence your practice. Some of the most, uh, compassionate and committed people that I've ever worked with are people who've lived through it already. Because what, what you are find again and again when you talk to people, uh, like that is, and and I always keep it in the back of my head when I working with young people, is, is, you know, be the person that you needed, be the adult that you needed when you were a child. And so I do take that with me, if nothing else. And what every child and it would need is to be listened to, to be heard, to feel safe, to feel loved, to feel wanted, to feel like we're doing this together. This is us together. We we will sort this out. You don't have to do it by yourself. And I think if we look at adult adults with mental health, I've, um, I run a mental health group online and those adults and the the things that they are frightened of aren't aren't that different to the, to the things that that that children are fighting of. We all have times where we feel vulnerable and that we just want somebody to come in and say, You know what, I'm here, What do you need? We'll sort this out together. I will come with you, I'll hold your hand. And I think that is the part that people who don't have experience of trauma don't necessarily always see that the very basic things like feeling seen, feeling heard, feeling connected, the understanding that you and Claire would have of all the fear that you have coming out of prison, all of the many things that are weighing on your mind about reconnecting, about how people are gonna see you, about how judged you feel about how, um, how you're gonna rebuild from, from the ground up. All of these things that, that you would fear are the nuances of trauma that I think people who haven't experienced it don't see and miss a lot of the time. Um, so I think not only do they have a place, I think it's absolutely vital to have those people, um, involved in it. Because apart from anything else, if somebody comes to you and says, I don't know your experience, but I know my experience and this is what I need, this is what I needed, what do you need that comes from, that feels so different than, okay, well I'm a professional and I've had this training and I'm telling you this is what we're doing, this is what you need. That's a very different dynamic. So I think it's absolutely vital that people who understand the system and people who understand the feelings that that come from it are involved in the rehabilitation process for other women. Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 25:09

And Rob, do you think there should be more experts by experience to help guide women upon release employed by the Ministry of Justice, for example, or connected with charities or probation?

Speaker 2: 25:20

I, I think it's absolutely imperative and, and people who have been through the experience are arguably our greatest asset in, in being able to A, understand, uh, and, and b come up with a solution to problems that that exist. Um, and in any walk of life, the people who are, who have been through the experience are invaluable, absolutely invaluable in any business, in any form. And I would like to see the Ministry of Justice get more involved with people who have been through the system and understand the system better. They do it in other areas and consult with people in other areas of business who, who have experience. So for example, they are currently asking me about Rule Foods nine post and how to improve the system, stuff like that. Cause I'm involved in it. It's, they should be extending that to people who have, who have been through the prison system certain, and it would be a fantastic opportunities could be made available in terms of support for, for other inmates who come out the system. And it's, it's as everybody has said, and I think we're all in agreement, it's absolutely invaluable, um, that people who have been through the system are able to properly contribute and they are actually listened to because there's, there's no doubt their views will be more valuable than anybody else's. That's certainly my opinion.

Speaker 1: 26:49

Oh, thank you so much Rob and all the other panelists. This brings to a close our second part of three of this podcast included in our Someone's Daughter podcast series, a discussion today, which has been about the role of women who have lived experience and may be a part of the solution to the entrenched problems of re-offending and crime. So stay tuned for the next part of this podcast coming next week. Thank you so much. Naomi Harlow, Rob Walsh, Fordam G and Claire Barstow. The View would also like to thank leading law firm in INS Law and Guer 37 legal chambers for their sponsorship and support of someone's daughter, Experts in prison law and human rights, defending the rights of people across the world. You can go online and search for someone's daughter to see powerful women photographed by world renowned and acclaimed photographers. Read their stories in the View Magazine and be inspired by these very shocking narratives, but also by these excellent constructive solutions. I'm Madelina Alberto, and this Rebel podcast is a production of The View Magazine. You can find the View Magazine across our social media where we are Rebel Justice. The View Magazine is available online via subscription and as a digital download on the view mac.org.uk. Support Amplify, donate.