The VIEW Magazine CiC
Presents
Rebel Justice Podcasts : Episode 7: Interview with Ivana Bacik and Farah Damji.
Welcome to The View Magazines Rebel Justice Podcast. In this weeks episode we speak to Ivana Bacik and the co-founder of The View, Farah Damji, about their involvement with Someone’s Daughter and the criminal justice system.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
The VIEW Magazine CiC
Presents
Rebel Justice Podcasts : Episode 7: Interview with Ivana Bacik and Farah Damji.
Welcome to The View Magazines Rebel Justice Podcast. In this weeks episode we speak to Ivana Bacik and the co-founder of The View, Farah Damji, about their involvement with Someone’s Daughter and the criminal justice system.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
Welcome to the View Magazine's Rebel Justice podcast. This is the seventh podcast in this series about our campaign, someone's daughter. In this panel, which was recorded during Photo London 2021, I speak with Yana Bick and the co-founder of The View, Far a DJI about their involvement with someone's daughter and the criminal justice system someone's daughter was shown at Somerset House. It is an insightful photography exhibition where leading practitioners take photos 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 take an interest in all of the processes. In today's episode, we'll be examining once again the actual reality of criminal law against women and how projects like someone's daughter could shine a light on this issue through the idea of art and photography. So, to start with, Iana, how did you get involved in someone's daughter and how has your involvement been?
Speaker 2:Uh, well, it's a pleasure to be here and to be a part of this project. I was intrigued by the idea of the project, uh, when I was approached, in fact by a colleague and friend here in Dublin, uh, Conor Horgan, who's a photographer, and he wanted to take a picture of me to accompany the project. But I suppose my involvement and interest in women and criminal justice stems back a long way. I'm a lawyer myself. It was for many years a criminal justice practitioner, criminal defense barrister in Dublin, trained in London before that. But before that, again, I'd been a student union activist in Dublin and had been threatened with prison for giving information to women in crisis pregnancy about where they could access abortion at a time when abortion was a criminal offense here in Ireland. And even giving information could land you in prison. So, uh, so at that point, at the age of 21, faced with the very real prospect of going to prison for, uh, for doing this, for, for, for helping women, um, I was obviously very engaged on issues around women in prison. We met with some women, ex prisoners at the time, myself and some other student activists, to hear about the experiences of women in prison. And I think that experience itself, although we didn't get sent to prison in the end, because a wonderful lawyer called Mary Robinson represented us in court and kept us out with her brilliant legal argument. Uh, and she later went on to become president of Ireland, of course. Um, you know, but although we didn't go to prison, I think that instilled in me a long interest in and, uh, engagement with, uh, women in criminal justice. And then when I went on and qualified and represented many women and indeed men on criminal justice charges, I was then quite regularly a visitor to prisons to meet with clients. But also then in my role as a lecturer in Trinity, in in criminology and in penology, I brought groups of students in, we engaged with various rehabilitation projects in prison. And now, now that I'm a a public representative, a member of our parliament, I'm convening the all party group on penal reform, a group of tds and senators that is parliamentarians who are interested in penal reform issues and who want to do, uh, as much as we can through the legislature to try and improve conditions for those in prison and try and reduce our reliance on imprisonment. So I have a long interest in this issue.
Speaker 3:And why get involved with someone's daughter now?
Speaker 2:Well, as I say, so the idea of a project that tried to bring together perspectives on women in prison from those who had themselves served time, those who were activists and advocates, that really, um, intrigued me. And I thought it was just such an interesting and innovative idea and to do it through a visual medium as well as spoken medium, I think it's really powerful and I just was really excited by the idea of it. So as soon as Connor suggested it to me, I, I jumped at it.
Speaker 3:Let me bring Farra in here. What has been your experience of the criminal justice system and what's your story?
Speaker 4:Of course. Um, well it's been brutalizing. It's been entirely dehumanizing and traumatizing and persecuting. I can tell you that, uh, when I was sentenced fraud in 2005, the judge at Black Prize Crown Court, um, John Samuels, who's meant to be this great penal reformer and uh, doesn't believe in women going to prison, basically sentenced me for fraud, for lying and stealing, and said a woman with my background from my family who's educated shouldn't do the things that I did. And no, no regard, no concern for any kind of early life trauma or sexual abuse or anything that I'd gone through that might have made me do what I did. And I'm not in any way trying to mitigate or excuse any of the crimes I did, but I think, I think I've been treated brutally actually. And I think it's because first of all, I'm a woman. And secondly, cuz I'm a brown woman, you know, how dare I have an opinion, How dare I speak up about injustice or say, Actually no, the way that you are treating me is unfair, is inhuman and probably unlawful. You know, I'm just supposed to sit back and take it be nice to the brown immigrant girl. And it's something that I've never really been very good at.
Speaker 3:So for those who are hearing you for the first time, what is the narrative of what you went through? What were the events leading up to your reaction? The pain, the trauma and the stigmatization?
Speaker 4:So very young. I come from a South Asian family and very young. They were inappropriate boundaries, um, violated and sexual abuse. And I mean, I have a daughter now and you know, the things that happen to me, if anyone even thought about doing to my daughter, I'd be up on a murder charge. But, so there was a lack of protection. There was sort of an unspoken, kind of a condoning of really inappropriate behavior by male adult male relatives. There was no understanding of where to take this pain and, and, and to sort of share what was happening to me. I, I had nowhere to go with it really. And you know, I come from a wealthy background, I've had a really good education. So I created this massive great big glamorous life and I just didn't fit in it. I felt like an imposter in my own life cuz the trauma that I had gone through and the life that I had created were just completely misaligned. And so I self-destructed that life. And it wasn't until I started to unpack some of the trauma that I, I started to understand why I did the things I did. And, and again, I just want to say it's not to mitigate any of the harm or any of the hurt that I've caused. I can't take that away. What I can do is try and understand my behavior and what I did and why I did it, and also try and make, make the system a bit better and a bit fairer for women who've gone through the kind of trauma and abuse and have the kind of mental health issues that I had and I have. Cause I don't think prison is the appropriate place for us.
Speaker 3:That's a good point to focus on reform. Now let's get back to Yanna. So from your experience and involvement, what are the realities which would shock or surprise people about the criminal justice system?
Speaker 2:That reality is the reality of loss of freedom, I think. And the fact of detention or incarceration itself as a punishment and, and a sanction, you know, is what always strikes me when I go into a prison, um, or indeed when I bring in students who've never been in prison before, is just seeing them experience that shock of being held somewhere against your, you know, involuntarily. I think that's the grim reality of prison that makes it such a stark and, you know, last resort punishment. And perhaps we don't often think of that, particularly if we see headlines about prison sentences and so on, that even 24 hours incarcerated against your will is a long, long time from, for most of us who've happily never been incarcerated or sentenced to prison. But the thought then of of months or even years, I think that's the real shock or the real, uh, the thing that perhaps changes people's minds the most. And certainly I've seen students going into prisons, meeting with prisoners, seeing the conditions going into a cell and having the door closed behind them. That that is the sort of thing that can change students or anyone's minds about the realities of imprisonment and about the use of prison as a sanction. I'm not saying that we don't, we shouldn't have it, but it's just that I think we need to think a lot more carefully about it and that more people need to experience the reality of prison to see what prison conditions are like and to take an interest in imprisonment and sentencing policies more generally. I mean, you know, we have a very good advocacy group here, the Irish Penal Reform Trust that I've worked with for many years. And indeed we work with them through our, uh, erectus or parliamentary group and penal reform. And that is the Irish Irish penal reform trust to the I P R T. And I know there are of course equivalents in Britain and all over the world, but these small NGOs typically work in a very niche sort of environment. And it's often very difficult to get a broader audience or a broader interest in prison issues beyond, you know, small membership of these important NGOs. But the work they do is very important nonetheless, in highlighting prison experiences and highlighting prison conditions. We have Mount Joy Prison, which is very poor conditions, is regularly reported for issues. It's very old building. Uh, the, the women's prison, conversely is a relatively new building built in 1999 and built actually to more rehabilitative principles, but unfortunately now it's become very much overcrowded and there's no step down facility. It's a high security prison for women, the Docus Center, and there isn't a step down, uh, or other women's prison where women can go for lower security or for, you know, preparation for release. So we we're still, you know, we're working on women's prison conditions as much as on men's here too.
Speaker 3:As Iana has spoken about conditions within prisons, Let's bring Farra back again. Could you say a little bit more about the stigmatization and the fact that you feel that what you did was seen in the light of images of what women of a certain kind should be like?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well there's all these stereotypes about the good immigrant in England aren't there, where, you know, we're supposed to just sort of put up with behavior, with conditions. We're supposed to be highly successful lawyers, doctors, architects or housewives, and there's no, there's no gap for women to fall into or, or, or, and there's no compassion. And I think when white male Oxbridge educated judges see women of color in particular, and I, and I mean this is evidenced with, you know, respected reports and research, we get treated much more harshly than our female white counterparts. And also we get longer sentences. The language, um, that judges use when sentencing, particularly Asian women actually, it's just horrific. It's traumatizing, it's mean, it's personal, it's, you know, you are vindictive, you are manipulative, you are violent. They step outta their role as, you know, servants of the people, offices of the court, people who are meant to stay, stay neutral in this legal arena. And, and they become the voice of the, the state or the queen or the victim. And you have no voice in this whole process. You know, you barrister, yours, lister, especially in England at the moment, you know, illegal aid is just absolutely broken. So you get someone who's, who's overworked, you probably hasn't taken the time to get to know you background. You're lucky if you've had a psychologist report, they're expensive, they're harder to get on legal aid now you're even luckier if you've got a probation report, you're super lucky if the judge isn't bothered to read any of that. So there are really embedded and systemic racist and misogynistic attitudes held within the British judiciary. And you know, they don't like it when you say that, but they get half a day training on diversity. They get half a day training on mental health. I think it's now half a day also on domestic abuse and domestic violence. So tell me, where is the rationale for someone who knows nothing about me all my life or what I've gone through to then make life changing and brutalizing decisions about my liberty? I mean, it's just completely the training of British judges. I mean, recently lots of women's organizations in England rose up and said, No, you need to have better training around domestic abuse. You need to understand cove patrol, you need to understand when a woman has been pushed to commit a crime, a violent crime, and you need to look at what's behind that. And the response from the judiciary was, No, thank you very much. Fine. Everything's, and it's not, if you look at the number of who are going nonviolent offenses, 87% of the English prison system is rammed full of women who've not committed a violent offense for public protection. And most of them are suffering mental health and drug issues. And the, um, minoritized women are massively, massively overrepresented when you consider are percentage in the population and, and the percentage representation in prison and, and also, you know, non-custodial disposals. So we need to look at the issue of who's in charge, who's doing the training, what their embedded views are, and we need to get some of these judges out into our communities to understand some of the issues. And you know, you talk about stigma, the, the stigma of being an Asian woman and going to prison is insurmountable. It's completely and totally you're not allowed to forget it. You're not allowed to move on. You are then taught and stigmatized entirely, you know, for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3:Now taking all of those issues to Yanna, what according to your professional experience, are the main flaws of the current criminal justice system as it pertains to the women caught up in, not just upon incarceration but throughout the entire experience?
Speaker 2:Uh, certainly in Ireland, I suppose we have the same issues around lack of diversity among the judiciary. That's certainly an issue and therefore many of us, uh, who've researched the system would've concerns about judges overall, I suppose lacking the sort of empathy or connection with the backgrounds of those who come before them typically. Um, I did some research some years ago on trying to map really the geographical areas from which defendants were drawn before the district courts, which is our lowest courts, the equivalent of magistrates courts in Britain. And we found that defendants were typically drawn both male and female, typically drawn from a very small number of, of geographic areas. Um, and from we map those with community health data, we found that, uh, these rare areas with the highest levels of economic and social disadvantages according to a whole range of measurements. So, uh, so certainly there's a concern about a link between crime and poverty, or at least between criminalization and poverty, and that that's not recognized by judges nor drawn into account and sentencing. Um, I would also have a concern, again, based on evidence and research, that women can be sentenced in some cases more harshly than men for the same crimes that women's caring roles and often the fact that there maybe many children dependent on them are not adequately taken into account when women are sentenced. So for example, the sentencing of a woman to even a short term of imprisonment can have an absolutely devastating effect on her children, on her fa on her broader family. And that that needs to be given greater recognition in sentencing. So, so I think there are really particular concerns around women in prison. We've also seen in Ireland very high rates of, uh, self-harm among women prisoners, high rates of addiction among and of psychiatric illness among women prisoners. And again, that's often not taken into account when women are sentenced because there can be very little by way of support offered in prison. Multiple short sentences can be the worst of course, because if a woman is being sentenced, let's say for a series of minor crimes, she can be sentenced to whole succession of different short term sentences. And that means that while there's, you know, breakdowns in the supports outside of prison and breakdowns in care for her children, there's very little by way of sustainable rehabilitation on offer within the prison then when you've got these very short term sentences. So I would've quite a number of different concerns around the imprisonment of women. Specifically, I was very excited some years ago, I think it was Barrons Corten in England, um, had a project trying to really, um, move to a system where women were being imprison much less to try to trial the reduction or minimization of prison as a sentence for women and then to try and roll that out for other vulnerable, um, groups within the criminal justice system. So I think that's the kind of innovative strategy and policy we would need to adopt. And certainly it's something I'd love to explore more here in Ireland
Speaker 3:For looking at your experience. What are some of the small practical changes you'd like to see implemented over the coming years that can make the entire process simpler, fairer, clearer, more responsive for the women going through it?
Speaker 4:We have to start with Prism as not being the default place for women to go. So fairness course's report wanted better and more sustainable funding for women's centers, which women could attend and be basically monitored and do courses and sort of an alternative to custody, uh, situation. But we need to be really careful of that because women centers are now forming part of the justice system and you know, coercion is not, um, that they're, they're basically an extension of the cast estate. So we have to be careful about coercing women to having to do things or having to go to places. You know, if there's no free will involved in it, then, then it's not really, I don't think it's gonna work. And then there are also issues where mothers can't take their children to women's centers and if you miss an appointment, you could be record prison. So we need to look at that whole situation really carefully. I think we need to look at justice reinvestment, which is where you take the phenomenal 37 billion pound crime and justice budget in England and you reinvest it into community solutions. So you have better funded mental health services, you have more upstream intervention so that women can be diverted outta the criminal justice system. You have, you know, there's all the buzz about trauma informed, but, but what does that mean? You know, trauma informed for who you're already gonna have a highly traumatic population in prison trauma then spreads, you know, secondary trauma and Vic's trauma. So you're gonna have a whole population of prison officers and governors and teachers and doctors who go into those prisons who are then being impacted by that trauma. So we need to look at just reducing the, the starting point has got to be, we shut down probably 11 of the 12 existing women's prisons and we look at alternatives to custody. I mean, I think there's only 13 women in in England who are, who've got whole life sentences. So one day all of the women that were incarcerating and not rehabilitating and abusing and brutalizing are all gonna be released back into the community. And we need to look at the long term costs of that, you know, intergenerational offending that children of mothers who've been to prison, or I think it's five times more likely to end up in prison. All the social services, police court and crime costs around that woman. There's this thing called million dollar blocks where actually blocks in New York cost a million to police one. So we need to just look at better ways to fund these other alternatives to custody. But I, I think the starting place is we have to accept that our justice system is broken. The Irish justice system is pretty much based on, on the English one. I was in the center when I was arrested here on a European arrest warrant last August. And you know, it was brutalizing, it was, it was horrible. There are women there who have really serious mental health issues who are not being looked after at all. You contact some of the organizations who are meant to be there that they don't understand the issues for women, uh, as in England as well. And I think we just need to, to start by saying who are we locking off and why? And do we need to, in who, whose interest is it? Are we just funding some huge criminal justice business? You know, as more and more private companies like G4S and Erco and you know, God knows who else gets involved in punishment for profit. Are we just funding a massive criminal justice enterprise? Is it public protection or is it just to punish and silence and oppress and pay these massive, you know, public private contracts? So we need to, as the public look at who we're imprisoning and why and look at much better funded solutions. But I don't think there is unfortunately kind of an inexpensive or a short term way that we can deal with this.
Speaker 3:So Yvonne, let's put those points to you. Have you seen any evolution either in the system or in people's thinking around it? What have some of the gains been and what have some of the losses been?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that, uh, there have been some very encouraging and innovative programs, which I've seen over the years. When we talked about the barrenness coron report here in Ireland, we had a, a really great project ru that ran for some time in the 1990s called the Connect program that was aimed at rehabilitation within prisons. It was partially run internally by prison officers and staff, but was coordinated by an external body with the re rehab organization here. And um, unfortunately it was discontinued due to lack of funding and well, well due to all sorts of different issues around political decision making and, and uh, withdrawal of funds. But that was the sort of innovative project that, you know, that can have real results. I think one positive here in Ireland, although, you know, we have lots of issues around prison conditions, as I've said, and around those in prison being drawn from disadvantaged communities and high levels of psychiatric illness and all of those issues. But one positive is that we have never privatized prisons here. So prisons are entirely public here. Um, and there is an accountability within that. The prison therapist is a, a public accountable body rather than a a private company. And that's a positive certainty because from what I've seen from elsewhere, the for-profit motive is a terrible motivating factor to introduce into any prison system. In my views, there are small scale programs still running despite the discontinuance of the Connect Pro program and we see in the doca center some, um, some positive programs is a good prison education system, but it's very piecemeal and I think the overall critique is a lack of planning for release, the lack of sustainable supports being offered in prison and as some somewhat chaotic system of short term sentencing. So really for me, a lot of the focus I think for prison reformers should be on trying to ensure much less use of imprisonment at the lower level in the mi in the smaller courts, in the our district courts or in the British magistrates courts so that we see judges moving to use other forms of sanction, not imprisonment, where offenses are minor, particularly where they're nonviolent minor offenses. And where judges contemplating, let's say a prison sentence of 12 months or less. We, we did a report some years ago for the Iraqis Justice Committee recommending that those sentences should be commuted to non-custodial sentences instead because there really is a question about why judges are sentencing people, people to short terms of imprisonment where offenses are minor, where there isn't, where they're nonviolent, where there's no real prospect of rehabilitation on offer within the system, that it would be in the interest of victims, it'd be in the interest of society to look at alternatives that would've less devastating impact on the lives of the individuals sentenced and would offer some prospect of rehabilitation as well.
Speaker 3:Farra, looking back, how do you feel about yourself, your narrative and your life? How do you see yourself now as a victim who's caught up in a system as an activist or as a survivor, even a perpetrator and advocate? What's your self-definition?
Speaker 4:I think that's a really good question. I think, I think I'm all of those things really, frankly, but I started the View Magazine with two other women at Down View and I think for me, um, redemption and creating some sense outta this whole horrible mess is the view. I mean, it is a really brilliant, respected, credible, amazing platform that we've built and, you know, my experiences of the Justices system are extreme. They are horrible. I left the UK cuz I felt persecuted and I felt like I'd never have a life. I left my children and my partner there. Um, I live in Ireland now and um, you know, it's very hard. It's, it's, you look at the awfulness that's written about me that I have bipolar disorder, that I've been convicted of sexual offenses, none of which is true. But you know, you try and get Wikipedia to correct something and you sort of feel like you're wasting, you feel like your life is wasting in front of you and you have to just come to a point where you know who you are, you know what you've done. And my purpose is to make the system better so that women don't go through what I did. And so it stops being so brutalizing so we can shine a light, you know, where there is horror and where there is stuff going on that really people don't want you to see or to know about. And I think that's my purpose now. And you know, people say, Oh, it's amazing. They view so great. You've built a platform, you've done this, you give these women a voice, you empower women, We don't do anything of the sort. Women have a voice, society robs it, the criminal justice system takes it away. All we do is have a platform where that can be amplified where people like you stand with us and say, actually no, it's not alright. It's not right to this woman. It's not all right to treat her that way and, and actually look at it slightly in a more nuanced way. So I, I don't feel like anyone's victim. I think I've done my time. So I don't feel like anyone's perpetrator or anyone's sort of pet criminal either. It's a renewing identity, I think. I think creativity and creating the view writing, painting, which is what I do now, editing the magazine is really part of, uh, another identity and, and part of an identity that I can align with rather than what is put on me or what the Daily Mail says about me or what, you know, Wikipedia is writing about me. You have to sort of discard and build your own definition and, and take back your own narrative. And I know that what we're doing is helping and supporting so many people and also giving people the tools to learn that, you know, women like me are not dangerous, incurable criminals or anything. Stuff has happened in our lives that we did things and we harmed people and we committed crimes, but those things shouldn't be the thing that we're defined for, uh, you know, forever and ever. I don't want to be known for the rest of my life as stalker or, or fraud star or whatever else they're calling me. So we need to look at a way of allowing women to reintegrate to reclaim their identities, who've served their time, who've been punished. You know, so when, when can I actually move on with my life? If you're gonna continue to punish me forever and ever at the age of 54, then then what happens to my identity? What do I have left to live for? I mean, I have loads to live for, but just sort of, um, hypothesizing what, what have I gonna be called all those names and those things that I've supposedly or have done? What, what point is there for me to try and be different or try and do anything else if I'm constantly gonna be defined by those awful things and those awful actions. So we need to really, we need to refocus what, what we're doing and what ju what justice is about and who it serves really.
Speaker 3:Let's go back to Yana and talk about someone's daughter. So how can a project like this raise consciousness about these issues?
Speaker 2:I think a project like this can have a really powerful impact because it invites people to engage with personal stories, with personal narratives, and that's often the key way to changing hearts and minds and attitudes for any experience. You know, we've come out in Ireland at recently of two big referendum campaigns, one on marriage equality in 2015 and one on abortion rights in 2018. And, you know, I was very involved in both as an activist and I think all of us who were involved and arguing and making the case for a change in the law to enable marriage equality to happen, to enable gay couples to marry in in 2015, and then to enable women to access abortion in 2018, both referendums were successful, but key to both of those campaigns was ensuring that that stories were heard, that personal experiences were shared, and that people were facilitated and supported in feeling empathy for those who are most affected by the law changes that we were looking for. The sharing of personal stories is such a powerful way of changing mine. So during the 2015 campaign for instance, there were so many people who said, Well, I'd never realized before, I'd never met somebody before who told me they were gay, who told me that they just wanted to marry the person they loved that this was the sort of story that changed the minds of people who then voted overwhelmingly in support of marriage equality. And then again, in 2018, who voted overwhelmingly in support of legalizing abortion in Ireland because again, they were hearing women's stories about crisis pregnancy, about the difficult circumstances or the particular circumstances in which they had made a decision to travel to England for abortion. Those stories changed minds and enabled people to feel they could vote to change the law, even if they personally didn't agree with abortion, even if they were influenced by Catholic church teaching, which is of course very powerful here. They were still empowered to to vote, to change the law because they'd heard the personal stories and those stories had had that powerful impact. So I think a project like someone's daughter works on the same principle. It's about engaging people in stories and sharing narratives and opening up a space where people can think differently about something like prison, which they may never have thought about before, may never have touched them directly, but yet they're hearing stories from women who who whose lives it has touched
Speaker 3:Farra as you are behind The View magazine, which is of course behind the someone's daughter exhibition. Why did you conceive that this idea of combining portraiture, photography, art, and women in the criminal justice system?
Speaker 4:Well, uh, it's not just me that's behind it there two, there were two other women who I was incarcerated with at Down View who, um, helped with the first issue and I'll still very, very much involved in it there, you know, there's a whole nother kind of business and governance side of it. For me, what's really important is that we reframe the way that we speak about, that we view, and that we portray women who, who've been involved with the criminal justice system. I, I think if we continue to just monster people and make them known by the worst thing they've ever done or what the Daily mouth says about them, it's dangerous. And I think it's harmful. I mean, self-harm rates in women's prisons at the moment are three times higher than they've ever been. Deaths in custody, which is basically suicide are the highest they've ever been. And you know, we're just brutalizing not just these women but their children, their, their communities, the families. We, we need to think about how we, how we treat and, and we also need to look at that really complex intersection of women who are in the criminal justice system who've gone through abuse and trauma and look at why they committed the crimes that they did. And I'm really proud that we're developing some amazing relationships with, um, the Women's Aid Federation in England and in Wales and the ending violence against women and girls, um, coalition in England who are starting to accept and finally, finally understand that women in the criminal justice system are they're sisters. They're not aliens, they're not, you know, we're not sort of, um, some foreign species or, or or to be discounted or to be discarded or disregarded, but we're actually women who've gone through our own stories and our own narratives and need to hold those up to, to kinda hold a mirror to society and say, Well actually, you know, we're here. We we're not going away. Um, we can't be silenced, we're free, we can't be oppressed. And I, and I think portraits and art, there's been millions and millions of words written about the female offender strategy and Barron has Coston and Lord Pharma and you know, the Bradley Review and you know, since the strange way Rios, there have been, I don't know how many millions of words written about reform in the criminal justice system. Nothing changes. And I think when you have women like Barras Kennedy and Barons Ha and Bianca Jagger and you and IV standing with women who've gone through the criminal justice system, I think it forces wo other people. I think it forces the viewer to alter his perception and, and to shift the focus on all of these women being someone's daughter and, and needing to be treated with compassion and humanity in spite of the crimes they've committed and what they've done or how we would like to see them. I think art is rehabil. I think creativity can take you outta really negative cycles in really harmful and self-destructing ways. You know, the, the power of these portraits, each and every one just tells such an incredible story about the woman standing there and the photographer, you know, who's involved in the process too. I mean, I'm really interested to see their reaction and how things flow from this.
Speaker 3:Now, just giving final last words to each of you start with Farra. What would you like the people listening to this conversation to do now?
Speaker 4:I'd like them to question what they read. I'd like them to look at the words being used in sentencing speeches by judges. I'd like them to really get involved as activists in our, in our campaign, which is about raising awareness of the trauma and abuse that lies behind women who are in the criminal justice system. And I, and I want them to demand as citizens who are paying these extortionate, you know, 45,000 pounds a year to be in some horrible British prison. But I want'em to start demanding accountability and saying to their mp, actually what we're doing is not working. And, and we don't wanna pay for this anymore because it's not working. We re-offending is going up exponentially. It's, you know, the, the systems that we have in place are not taking dangerous criminals off the streets. Um, so what we're doing is failing, so actually asking for justice reinvestment, which means better mental health solutions, which means properly funded non-coercive women's centers that don't work with probation, that don't work with the police that are, you know, safe havens for women to come to where children can come, where they won't get record if they missed an appointment. And we need to start thinking much more creatively about how we can approach justice. We, we need to start asking very, very basic questions about what is justice, who is it for? Who does it serve? And, and then we can start to sort of question why money is being spent where it is and ask for it to be spent in more, you know, productive and sustainable ways. And it's not hard, it's letters to mps, it's, it's calling people to account. If enough people write to Robert Buckland and say, actually what you're doing isn't working, can we think about, you know, shutting, let's shut 10 of the women's prisons and find alternatives to custody. Cause for 45,000 pounds a year, you can do an awful lot with that woman rather than locking her up 23 hours a day in a cell where she's gonna lose her connections, lose our community, lose our children and her home. There are much more sustainable ways of spending that money.
Speaker 3:And ianna what's your answer to that? What would you like the people listening to this conversation to do as they move forward?
Speaker 2:Well, I think a change in mindset is really what we're talking about. We're asking that people would reconsider or, or would begin to question the stereotypes around women and indeed men in prison. That people would begin to think about challenging the perceptions or misperceptions around prison, um, around the idea of prison is somehow an easy or obvi or, you know, a default solution to crime. And that instead we would be really inviting people to start rethinking how a criminal justice system could look, rethinking how rehabilitative strategies could be foregrounded and how prison could just become a sanction genuinely of last resort, um, rather than the sort of default setting for the criminal justice system. So I think it's about challenging stereotypes and about inviting a new perspective on those who are being sent to prison and on how we are running a prison, prison systems and criminal justice systems to ensure that there's less reliance and imprisonment and that we start to move away from prison as a sanction. So that I think would be really what a project like this might conceivably start to do.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much Yba Chicken Fire DMG on sharing your very own experiences with our human rights campaign and the criminal justice system. This brings to a close our seventh podcast. Someone's daughter aims to change the way you see justice. And this was a discussion which reminds us of the very issues faced by women in and out of prison and the potential improvements we could have done to change the situation. You can go online and search for someone's daughter to see powerful women photographed by world renowned and well acclaimed photographers. You can also read our stories on the View Magazine and be inspired by these shocking narratives, but also by these excellent constructive solutions. Thank you for listening to this episode. I am Madelina Alberto, and you can stay tuned for next week's podcast.