116. A talk with Andy West - philosophy behind bars

Prison is one of the most hidden institutions in the UK, which means our opinions are often built from cinema scenes rather than social reality. We sit down with Andy West to talk about what happens when you bring big questions about freedom, identity, shame, and responsibility into a place designed for control.

We explore Andy’s journey from HMP Belmarsh and other London prisons to therapeutic settings like HMP Grendon, and why he keeps returning to the classroom even when the wider system is chaotic and disorganised. He explains why he holds a modest hope for prison education: not a neat ladder of rehabilitation, but a chance for someone to be “somewhere else” for a couple of hours. That shift matters because prison so often forces people to live under the weight of a single past moment, while a good lesson insists on possibility.

Andy also takes us behind the scenes of adapting his memoir The Life Inside into the BBC series Waiting for the Out. As executive producer, he describes the push and pull between protecting the “realness” of prison life and letting a story take on its own life through casting, scripts, and performance. That leads to a bigger question about accountability in the criminal justice system: how can prisons be held to account when the public rarely sees them, and when journalists and ordinary citizens struggle to get inside?

We talk about differences between men’s and women’s prisons, the role of autonomy, the limits of reform conversations, and why “trauma-informed” language can ring hollow when prison itself can be a trauma. If you care about prison reform, decarceration, rehabilitation, and honest storytelling about UK prisons, this one will stay with you. Subscribe, share with someone who thinks they “know” what prison is like, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Welcome And Andy West Intro

Host 0:10

So, Andy, thank you so much for being here and taking the time. Um, for those of those who are listening who haven't read your memoir, The Life Inside, or seen the new series Waiting for the Out, if you wouldn't mind please introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about your journey and teaching.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Yeah, um, my name's Andy West, and I've been teaching in prisons for about 10 years. I started out in HMP Belmarsh, high security prison in London, where I live. Uh, and I went to Pentonville and Brixton, and I've taught I've taught in about 30 prisons now, including men's prisons, women's prisons, um, prisons for uh young people, prisons for people who've committed sexual offenses, therapeutic prisons like H ⁇ P Grendon, where I'm working at the moment. Um and a few years ago I published a book all about the kind of conversations I was having with people inside, you know, philosophical conversations that are kind of always interesting wherever you're having them, but maybe there were it was extra interesting to discuss freedom with people in prison when some people told me they felt more free inside than they did outside. Um, and just just hearing that and just be becoming curious, really. Um I think the reason I teach in prison is is um partly because when I was a kid my dad was in prison, and so was my brother, and so was my uncle. Um, and in fact, my brother's partner now is someone he met in recovery. Uh, she she used to be a prison officer for 12 years. So it's it's kind of a family business. Um uh I'm just sort of going in with a keychain on my belt. Um, so the book, The Life Inside, is is it's a philosophical exploration, it's about the world of prison, uh, but it's also about family and children and inheritance and shame. It's a lot about those kind of things.

Host 2:17

Yeah, I I for one found it an incredible read. Um, it was really interesting. I loved the way that you really went also about your own experiences through these different themes that you were actively teaching. I thought it was a really interesting way to approach, especially from a reader's perspective.

Turning A Memoir Into BBC Drama

Host 2:38

Um, I'm curious because you're also, I didn't know this actually, an executive producer of Waiting for the Out. I wasn't sure how involved you were in the process of um its creation. If you wouldn't mind uh telling us how that went for you, adapting your story for television, and what you thought about it overall.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Yeah, um, so back when I I only had only written a proposal for my book, I hadn't written the full book. I'd written a proposal, this very long proposal, it was about 17,000 words. Um producers got in touch and said, you know, we we could see this as a TV show, uh, which I couldn't at all because it's so reflective. Um the book. But but there are lot there is lots of dialogue in it, and and there's lots of storytelling and and lots of images and scenes, and and so they sort of convinced me in the end that, oh yeah, maybe this could be a TV show. Um and worked with a wonderful writer Dennis Kelly and a wonderful production team sister, uh, and it came out earlier this year on the BBC as waiting for the art. Um, yeah, I was executive producer, so you know, I was I was very involved. Um, but it's it's a funny thing being an exec producer when you are also the author of the source material, because um in some ways you have you you have lots of authority and you have um you know your opinion is is really significant and and should be significant because you're so close to the source material and um the kind of the the realness of it. In another sense, um I was in a world which was totally new to me of of television, and there were things like casting or principles of photography and lighting or whatever, where you know I I only had a um you know I I would I was with kind of experts and people who really knew their field. So so part of I think that role is is knowing where you're relevant and where you're not relevant. Um and so yeah, I I I I was very involved. I was on set, you know, once a week uh for a couple of days. I was um I was really engaged with the with the script writing and and uh read-throughs and things like that. Um but also you know when I first met Josh, the the guy who's playing the character based on me, uh I think I think for the first few weeks, I I just wanted to give him lots of space actually, and I I wanted to not meddle and allow him to build a character that had a life of his own. And then we started spending a bit more time together, and then you know, he would come to me sort of asking for just just about my experience and just about you know certain moods or sensations. Um so yeah, so it's it's one of these things where like you're right in the middle of it, and and in a way you're sort of the most important person, but there are then these other moments where you're not relevant actually because the story has a life of its own and people are working and and that and they're much better at their job than you could be at their job. Um so you you need to know when to approach and when to back off, I think.

Host 6:01

Really interesting. I'm sure that dynamic was. I I wish I could be there to see behind the scenes what was going on. Um but yeah, I can definitely imagine that knowing where to really step back and let them um handle some of the details. Because the story I would say is quite similar to very similar to the memoir. There's a lot of specific details that I really um could see so many parallels, but of course, it is like televised, it is a bit different. Um, so I can completely imagine that.

First Day Security And Classroom Shock

Host 6:33

Um moving on, in the book and the series alike, I would say as the audience, we really experience your first day very vividly. What I'm curious if there's something in particular that you still remember from your very first day teaching in prisons.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Um I think security, just going through security and um the kind of humorlessness of it, you know, the sort of trying to make this feel normal, trying, you know, like when you go through airport security, you sometimes give a little nod or have a friendly exchange with the people who were frisking you or telling you to take your boots and belt off. Um I just felt that wasn't like it it was just this shift in social niceties, you know, and and just this signal of like this is a place where actions have consequences. Like you you don't bring anything contraband in here, you don't even do it by accident, you know. Um yeah, I I think the classroom itself, um, you know, it it was really challenging, and um I I was definitely out of my comfort zone at first, but I was also sort of relishing it, so that's different. I don't relish going through security. I think it's um I you know I I don't really know what it's like to be a prisoner. Um you know, I've I've I've no I've felt that way for a long time, you know, ever since I was a kid, and and I had loved ones who were prisoners and I wasn't. But I think there's something about uh the security regime, which even the staff have to uh undergo, which slightly puts you in that position of no, you you have to sort of you have to just do what people say when you go through security. Uh and that's um, you know, I I can see why it's necessary, but it can also be infantilizing and difficult.

Teaching Helps People See Themselves

Host 8:45

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, thank you. Um I would like to ask you a little bit about teaching specifically, so education and how um that relates to broader themes. In your memoir, there was a specific part in one of your closing uh chapters, I believe it was home, um, where one of your students, Nick, he reminded you, I have the quote here, um, that a teacher can do more than bear witness to the vanished. You can actually help people keep sight of themselves. And I was curious to know if you could tell us a little bit more about what that means for you now, and if that has any implications in your teaching still today.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Yeah, I think um I think visiting prison as a kid, you know, visiting my brother or whatever, and then coming back out into the world, um, and people just seeming so blissfully unaware of that, so blithe, that you know, just a few miles from your your front door is this is a prison, and it's um it's sort of you know, they're they're they're these really dark, difficult, um, complex places. Um, and and having sort of glimpsed the edge of that and then come into a world where people didn't really connect with that, I I think that made me feel sort of very alienated, and I think it left a uh a sense of moral responsibility in me that actually there are people behind that wall, and and I sort of need to bear witness to them. Um I think I you know, I think that's uh one of the things that I I talk about in the book is sort of actually is bearing witness helpful or not, you know? Um and does it actually compound a sense of kind of survivor's shame? Um, does it make things difficult? And is it actually helping those people you're witnessing? And so part of what I'm doing in the book is I'm kind of trying to trying to grow beyond that really, um, merely bearing witness or um that kind of survivor shame and trying to find something bigger than that and and and richer and more dynamic. And and I think that is education that's um, you know, the teacher doesn't just bear witness to the students, they help people become their own witnesses and um become witnesses of themselves and their condition and their circumstance and their lives and their future and their past and all that kind of stuff. So um, yeah, for me that that was the kind of the insight, really great.

Host 11:38

Um

Education Sees Possibility Beyond The Past

Host 11:39

so actually this leads perfectly to my next question, which is from your experience or your belief system, what role do you think education plays in decarceration as a strategy?

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Yeah, I mean um I know there's people out there who who are sort of doing research to try and kind of prove the association between education and rehabilitation or reducing rear funding or or you know, whatever way you want to put it. Um I've always had a much more modest hope for my lessons, in that I just I think it offers people a chance to be somewhere else, or to be someone else, or to be another version of themselves for a couple of hours. Um just because the system is so chaotic and so disorganized, that actually the idea that your education could kind of be kind of structured and organized in such a way that you know there's a kind of pathway for you just isn't realistic in UK prisons most of the time. For most people, you know, education is an event that happens, and then people are often just thrown back onto the landing and and then eventually thrown out of prison and then often to no housing or you know, further education possibilities. So so you know, that there is a there's a world that exists, and it exists for some people in some places, I'm sure, but where education is the thing that uh gets people away from crime and gives them more life opportunities or whatever. I I think I think we're very far from realizing that world, sadly. Um but you know I think often often with people in prison, the first people the first thing people want to know about them is what are they in for? What do they do? Uh you know, I watched a great documentary a couple of years ago about a musician who went into prison, and he he did these amazing projects and concerts with with young people in prison, but on camera, his first question to everyone he every prisoner we met was what are you in for? Um and it's that it's that weight of your past. It's it's it's the fact that your past or an event or at a day or a moment in your past will now frame who you are, um, which is I think so difficult for people who've been convicted. Uh, and I think the role of education is as a teacher, you you you look at people and you don't the first thing you see is not their past, the first thing you see is their possibility. Um, and that's you know that that's necessary if if um what was your phrase, decarceration. I think that's necessary if we're thinking about decarceration.

Host 14:40

Absolutely. I think that was a really uh nice way to uh put it, especially because in your book you also discuss um trauma being related to your identity. I believe it was the uh discussion with the three uh different individuals where they talked about how sometimes it's hard to separate yourself from your trauma when it becomes so entrenched in your identity. Um but I think it's a really beautiful way to put it that the role of education is to look not at their past, but at their possibility. Um I was wondering, I mean, it's kind of this a similar question, but do you think um in terms of your courses in philosophy, um outside of this like two hours, I believe, was it heaven, two hours of heaven or home? I forget. Uh a holiday in the head? Holiday, holiday, yes, holiday.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

I'm definitely not taking anyone to heaven.

Host 15:32

That that was I knew it wasn't that, but I knew it started with an H. Um sorry. Um, yeah, two the two-hour holiday. I think that was a really good way to phrase your courses. Um, I think it also came across in the book as such. Um, do you think that teaching philosop more philosophy courses um in or outside of prison maybe has um what what potential do you think that has in society um these types of courses, either in decarceration or other um societal movements?

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Yeah, um I think philosophy is a really great way of finding out what you believe and what you think. Um and it's a it's a it's a great way of um like finding out what you really think and what you really believe, and not just being blown around by the you know media, social media, online culture, uh the group mentality, whatever it is. Um yeah, I think you know, I think when people have the chance to think and pause, you know, that that was I think that was one of the kind of big things that changed the direction of my life because you know I I I left school with not uh a great um GCSE uh record, and um you know I I've I've said sort of what kind of background I came from, so that's not a surprise. But there was something about doing philosophy where it's like what so people actually sit and give time and think about how they want the world to be and how they want their life to be and and how they want to be, like I you know, I think a lot of kind of working class life is a is a lot about just adapting to what the world does to you uh and trying to survive it. Um, but you know, as you sort of uh get a bit more clearance from that, um moving up the class spectrum, there's there's these opportunities that come through things like philosophy where you can deliberate and and kind of you know change yourself, essentially, kind of rewrite yourself. Um so so yeah, you know, I think philosophy is a huge part of people living the life they most want to live, um, you know, ethically, socially, personally.

Host 18:12

Absolutely. I I completely agree. I think even just um using philosophy as a tool to figure out what your values are, even for um voting patterns, for example, would be extremely beneficial. Um this might be a bit of a reach, so um of course feel free to um be honest.

Men And Women Prisons Feel Different

Host 18:34

Um have you noticed a particular philosophical theme or topic that perhaps resonates differently between men and women in the prisons that you teach in? And if there is um a theme or topic uh um like that, why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Um, I mean, one thing that really strikes me about the difference between men and women's prisons, it's it's not so much topics, but it's just the learning environment. So for men, you know, they're often in prisons with 1,300 people, often quite unstable prisons, you know, where the churn is very high. And um I I think a a lot of men just survive prison just by shutting down, just by switching off a part of themselves, uh, the part of them that might have needs, you know, that can only be met by the world outside. Um and so sometimes I have 12 men in my class and they're all on the same wing or the same landing, but they don't know each other's names. And that's that's just because they're you know avoiding conflict, avoiding trouble, keeping themselves to themselves, just shutting down, going into themselves. Um whereas if I go into a woman's prison, you know, there's probably 300 women there, uh, they're unlocked a lot of the day, they know each other very well. Um it's quite a stable population often. So when I walk into that room, you know, with men, I have to create a community in the classroom. With women, like the community is there, I have to be accepted into it. Um so it's it's a really different mood, actually. Yeah.

Host 20:26

Absolutely. I remember you uh mentioning that that it's sort of this group that you have to kind of earn your respect in, whereas with the men you have to use your courses to create this group.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Host 20:41

Um building on that, in your in one of your chapters, I think it was forgetting, I think it's the same chapter where you discussed the these differences. Um you described prison seeming much more brutal once you had been inside a woman's prison. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Yeah, I think again, because because men sort of I think the way men suffer in prison is often quite muted or repressed, or comes out in in ways that are quite destructive to other people sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Um whereas I I found you know, I I found women just you know, uh you know, women would just cry.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Something will have happened in the day, or the or the the topic of conversation will go in a certain direction that's evocative or triggering or whatever, and and they'll just start crying. And you know, I've I've worked in prisons for ten years and I've I've seen one man cry. And I've probably seen a woman cry every time I've walked into a woman's prison. So, you know, it there's something about just the fact that women register and reflect the emotional reality of the prison world more nakedly, I think, that makes you realise actually this place is really this institution is really God, it's it's must just be so lonely and so frustrating and so hard. Um in in a way that I think it is for men as well, but the it the the cost of showing you that is just too high on the London.

Host 22:38

Yeah, um I can completely see that. I mean, just with um of course growing conversations of m what it means to be masculine and feminine, it it um it it makes a lot of sense um what you've observed thus far. Um

Patriarchy Autonomy And The Limits Of Reform

Host 22:55

moving within the same paragraph or page, actually, um you also went on to say that you were reminded that prisons are one of the most forceful demonstrations of patriarchal power that there is. Um a lot of our readers and listeners know this uh firsthand. I've also become really familiar with specific cases that show this. And I was wondering through your observations and experiences what is the most or one of the most overlooked ways that this power plays out in women's prisons?

SPEAKER_03 23:31

Yeah, I mean, um, there's people who will speak far more eloquently um about this than I can, you know, about how how prisons are essentially designed for men, and you know, even the way they treat men is is very dehumanizing. Um but to put a woman in a sort of architecture and and regime which is designed to incarcerate a man is you know doubly dehumanizing. Um so it's you know, I'm I I see that uh, you know, but um as I say, there's people who can talk much more eloquently about it than I I can. Um yeah, I think there's just something about um just just control and just the loss of autonomy, and that as a kind of kind of patriarchal move, you know, this sort of fear of um fear of chaos or something, fear of loss of control. Um and and this is the thing about prisons, right, is that you you infantilize someone for you know a number of months or years, and then you you hope that they've changed their behavior when actually all they've done is just lost their autonomy. So it's kind of f it's further for them to get back a lot of the time. Um yeah.

Host 24:58

Absolutely. Absolutely. Did you um navigate these themes in uh the classroom in terms of maybe the architecture of the system or regime like you mentioned? Did you was this something that you discussed with uh the women that you taught or with any of your students?

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Yeah, um I've I've only had a couple of conversations that kind of deconstruct prison, actually. Um, you know, talking about reform, abolition, Foucault, um, that kind of stuff. Umce was quite early on um in my teaching career in prison. Um, and I found the mood was just quite low. Um because because I think people have this sense that we know the laundry list of things that are wrong with the system, but the system will not change. Um and so people I could people kind of reported being quite frustrated in that conversation. Um so it's a real mix because because as a as a teacher, you you want to give people a chance to relate to their experience differently. And if they have an experience of prison, then it might be really good to look at alternative philosophies that deconstruct prison. But that can also make people feel very frustrated and and like they want to have another conversation instead. Um you know, I I would do it again in the future, but I think I I would in fact I did do it again, and I think I pitched it a bit differently, and I think I I asked the group if that was what they wanted to talk about in the previous weeks, and and then and then we addressed it. Um But also, you know, some people in prison are quite firmly retributionist and think prisons should be tougher. And um it's not it's not just the case that because people are annoyed that they're in prison that they they think prisons shouldn't exist or anything like that. Sometimes it some people have a very punitive logic sometimes.

Host 27:11

Interesting, interesting. Thank you.

Accountability Needs Public Gaze And Access

Host 27:14

I I yeah, I can only imagine that's a difficult conversation to initiate, um, especially during the two hours of of holiday. Um from what you've seen, you kind of touched on this that of course, I mean, I think a lot of us share this idea that the system or the government isn't um, you know, a lot a lot of these things are not, there is not a lot of accountability. Um But I'm curious what accountability would look like to you. Is yeah, in general with inequalities um within the broader criminal justice system, what what would real true accountability look like?

SPEAKER_03 27:58

Yeah, it's so hard, you know. Um I don't think it's more procedures and more paperwork because I think those things just get reframed and buried and massaged and all that kind of stuff. Uh you know, I as a teacher I've I've also worked in schools, state schools, and um you know every September when I go back to teach in the state school, uh it's different to the previous September. Something has been changed, developed, built, um some new language around mental health or special educational needs, or um how you teach English, how you teach maths, children's cultural religious identity, you know, it's so it's always progressing. And um I think the reason is that 93% of children in this country go to state schools, and so a sizable amount of the middle class are looking what's going on inside that school. I want to know, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna check, uh, I care about it, I'm invested. Um, if you look at you know, uh 80, 90,000 people in prison in this country, if you look at the background they come from, they're often minoritized, they're often working class or underclass. Um it's different. You know, things don't change from year to year. Things don't change from decade to decade in some prisons. Um, the textbooks are from you know 1987. In some classrooms, I've seen them. Um there's just a sense of neglect and drift, and and you know, working in a school, you can feel the general public are on your shoulder watching what you're doing. Working in a prison, you can feel the general public have turned the other way and don't care. And the people who do care, the fact that their their brother or their dad or mum or whatever is in prison don't have a political voice. Um, so accountability for me uh is a lot about how open prisons are to the public gaze, uh and how much people care about what they see when they're in there. You know, it's it's so it's so strange having written this book and and made this TV show, because um you have to be really careful, really, because if if I were making a show about school or a hospital, and I was really exaggerating and I was really over the top, and you know, I embellish loads of stuff or whatever, people would know. People would know in two seconds because they go to hospitals, they go to schools. People don't go to prisons, and so the public are really susceptible as to what you tell them about how violent prisons are, or how corrupt they are, or how efficient they are, or how draconian they are. Um, you know, that people's ideas of prison are informed by the cinema rather than by any social reality. Um so how can you have an institution be accountable when people just don't know what it is? Um you know, I I I think I think prisons just need to be more open to the public. We need we need more eyes on that, you know, more people who care, more you know, we we have inspectors, we have journalists. I think it's a lot harder for journalists to get in than it was uh before. Um but yeah, more transparency from and and yeah.

Host 31:54

Absolutely, absolutely. It's also really interesting the perspective you have working in state schools as well, that you really see this contrast. I can only imagine um yeah, how how deep that goes. Um actually, it's kind of related to um to schooling.

When Students Learn My Family Story

Host 32:16

Um in your memoir and in the um series, you talk a lot about your own internal battles, which I feel are extremely important. Um, and I really um admire that as well. Um, how uh transparent you were about um everything going on. Um and a lot of these were, of course, connected to your childhood. And I'm wondering how did that shape the way you understood your students, especially those who were parents or or siblings, for example.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

Um yeah, it's a funny thing because I didn't I didn't tell um any of my students uh in prison about my my background at all, like for for years. I just thought it wasn't really appropriate, it wasn't really I was there to teach, not to kind of uh enter some kind of like uh surrogate kind of group therapy, family therapy thing. Um and and then when I my book came out, I couldn't sort of it was there, it was in print and it was in the libraries and everything in prison. So people knew, and actually I found people responded to me quite differently. Um, and I I saw I think a little crack in some of the guys I was teaching. Um I think because you know, a lot uh you know, a lot of guys are like, Yeah, I'm in prison, you know. I've I've I've had a number of guys who are like, Yeah, I'm in prison, it's a laugh, whatever, I don't care, they can do what they like to me. Kind of, you know, just using swagger to kind of get through the sentence. The fact of your kids, the fact you have a kid on the out, or a little brother, and you're not there, and you know they're being bullied at school, or there's a teacher who doesn't like them, and you're not there, it hurts. I don't care how much of a bad boy you are, it you you you feel responsible for what you've done. I've seen it. Um and and I think I represented that to them. I think they looked at me and they saw, like, oh, like, okay, you've had an older brother in prison or a dad in prison. And I think I think pe you know, I would tell people about my family history, and people would look at their feet, and you know, I just I just see this kind of sadness, and it was difficult. And you know, sometimes they ask me questions about what did your parents tell you when your brother went to prison? You know, what did what do you wish they'd said? Like, like how do I handle this situation? You know, I haven't I haven't told my son I'm in prison yet. He thinks I'm in the army, he thinks I've gone to Africa. Um so yeah, it really changes the dynamic between me and them once that's out.

Host 34:59

I I can imagine that. Thank you. Um I I had an interview actually recently on uh the Lady Edwina scholarships. I don't know if you had heard oh, you had heard about them?

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Uh I haven't heard about them. Is that Edwina?

Host 35:15

Uh yeah, Gross Gross Vidy. Yeah, uh exactly. So she um partnered with the uh Manchester Metropolitan University, and I just spoke with um a professor there who she worked a lot um with um a lot of different um people, particularly youth who were um affected by the system. And um it was really interesting because she said kind of a similar thing where she had no connection to uh the justice system personally, and she found that those who had some sort of connection, either um through family or through themselves personally, they were able to break down these barriers um so much faster than she was. Um, of course, I I don't that's not a direct quote, but um so it's interesting that um you say that because it's that's not the first time I've heard it that this there was like this specific um I I don't have the correct word for it, but the specific um dynamic that had changed um with this information.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Yeah, interesting.

Why Trauma Informed Talk Can Fail

Host 36:23

Um I'm wondering also, um kind of still to do with um adverse childhoods and um and um family patterns, um what role do you think, for example, trauma-informed or uh gender responsive uh pathways would have for your students, but also for their children?

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Yeah, um I mean in terms of my own experience, you know, I had uh I have I had lots of male figures in prison, but but never um female figures. So I'm very like women's prisons and and the the realities of them is a bit more of an away game for me, uh if you know what I mean. So so I'm trying to I'll speak as sort of humbly as I can about that. Um yeah, trauma's a funny one. Trauma's a funny one. Um interestingly, I don't, you know, I talk about OCD in the book, and I talk about shame, and I talk about all of those things. I never use the word trauma to describe my own experience. Um because for me the experience was so linked to the justice system. Um, you know, I talk about having an executioner in my head in terms of OCD and um, you know, this kind of dread doom kind of voice. Um executioners work for the justice system. I think if I'd have called it trauma, uh it would sort of medicalize it and it would remove it from its context. Um and so I avoided doing that just because I think it would have lost some vitality as a description and lost some particularity as a description. Um so it's difficult because my own processing of my own stuff, I've uh deliberately tried to stay away from that language. So it's a it's a little bit hard to then try and offer advice about trauma when I'm so resistant to using the word myself. Um you know, I I know we talk about trauma-informed prison and trauma-informed regimes and whatever. Um it's so paradoxical, isn't it? Because prisons are themselves a trauma, the the social disconnection, the shame, the loss of identity. Um I think the fact that you know the walls, instead of being at right angles, might be curved now because that's trauma-informed, uh, feels a little bit cosmetic rather than you know um anything else. Uh I mean a trauma-informed approach, the b the biggest trauma-informed approach you can probably make is just community sentences, like swapping, you could probably swap a third of custodial sentences for community sentences like that, and and that hey, that's a m that's a massive trauma-informed change.

Host 39:42

Yes, definitely, definitely. Well, thank you. Um, also for clarifying. I really, yeah, the way you also framed um the executioner in your memoir, I found really, really unique. Um, and also hearing now why you chose to exactly frame it that way is is really interesting to me. Um, and I'm sure to our listeners as well.

Digging Holes And Never Getting Out

Host 40:07

Um kind of wrapping up, I'm looking at the time. Um for me, I think I just really appreciated the depth of your discussions within your classrooms and the way you navigated that as well. Um, and the detail that you recalled it in was super fascinating. Is there a particular discussion? Maybe it's not in um in your memoir or not um in the series, from any class that you taught, maybe also in um state schools, that really still stays with you that you found to be very profound?

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Yeah, so many, so many. I mean, um, I was in a prison recently uh near Ipswich where um I was showing them clips from Waiting for the Out, actually, and we were discussing them. And I showed them this clip, which is based on my uncle, where he describes being in a bore stall years ago, and when he was in the SEG there, you know, as a 15-year-old, he was made to dig holes that were eight feet deep, and then at the end of the day, fill them back in, and then dig them again and fill them back in and on repeat. Um, and I was always kind of really wondering, like, what, like, how do you survive that? How do you how do you not go mad? How do you not burst into tears? How do you not swing a shovel at someone's head, you know? And my uncle just said, Oh, I just loved it. And I was like, what do you mean? And he said, Well, I just pretended to love it, I loved it. I was like, So you pretended you didn't actually love it, and he went, I pretended to love it, so I loved it. And I I didn't really know if what he was giving me was bravado or spirit, you know, courage, rebellion, or bravado that had become courage, or you know, I I was this a mask, or was it was this his true face kind of thing? Um and I I've I've I've shown that clip to prisoners a few times, and you know, some people really admire him and and and his his kind of spirit, that you know, there's part of him that that the the officers, for all their kind of brutalizing punishments, they can't really touch, they can't break, they can't reach that spirit. Um and then a prisoner said to me the other day, um, I don't think your uncle ever really got out of that hole. You know, I think I think if you start saying you love prison, then you're institutionalized. And um, and it really kind of gave me goosebumps because I that my uncle's past now, sadly, but there was a part of him who he lived for that life, you know, he lived for the the buzz of the landing and the job, you know, the work, the the crime and everything. And and it would it was sort of a place where he could be most himself, but it was also a place where he was most institutionalized and most um oppressed, and uh in virtue of that. So yeah, you know, just those things, um, just those insights people give you sometimes in the classroom are like, oh wow, you know, he never got out of that hole. What what what what a way to extend the image?

Host 43:35

Absolutely, and my condolences. I I didn't realize he, yeah, I really enjoyed listening to your dialogue with him. And um, I am my uncle is actually also called Uncle Frank. So I was trying to, so I really I I really appreciated those dialogues that you included. Um I'm trying to think of what I want to ask you uh next. But I am paying attention to the time.

Kindness In Prison And Family Viewing

Host 44:02

I think before my last question, in the closing chapter of your book, you were talking about Schopenhauer's idea that life is kind of the suffering, and seeing the world as a prison can actually make us more tolerant, patient, and kind. And one of your students, Kit, responded that, or noted later, that prison is where you learn what kindness means. And I was curious what you thought of that specifically.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

Yeah, um there is something, you know, I f I feel this very regularly going into prison. There is something about the fact that people are in there in st the fact they're in there means some there's been some ordeal in in their lives or their backgrounds, or, you know, Gwen Adhead, the forensic psychotherapist who works in prisons puts this as um she sees the people she works with as survivors of a disaster, of which sometimes they are the disaster.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

And um I yeah, I just think the enormous um what's the word I'm looking for?

SPEAKER_03 45:30

Obstacle of prison, the the enormous frustration of it, the the the circ just how the circumstance of being in prison is so like just you know, the worst things have happened, and that's why we're here. The worst things have happened. Um yet, you know, people still find most of the time, you know, 99% of the time, a way to be pro-social and to be engaged and to look out for each other and whatever. So so there is something about the fact that like yeah, people people can be kind when their bellies are full and their pockets are full and they've got you know uh nice lives and everything's going your way, but people can also be kind when they're eating prison food and they don't have much canteen and uh they're estranged from their family, or you know, they never had a family in the first place, or whatever. Um, there is something about that that you do get a kind of rush of humanity sometimes in prison at just the fact that people do get on with it and and are are quite nice to each other most of the time, given given everything they're going through.

Host 46:51

Thank you. Yeah, I I I really liked um that that the theory really stood out to me. This like idea um and what I think that means for society is really important, um, and how it humanizes um your students. I I think it um I I just I really enjoyed that. So thank you so much. And I wanted to end on a positive note um on what do you hope uh that people will take away from this new series? Of course, your memoir has been out since I believe 2022. Um so what do you hope people are gonna take away from the series if it wasn't from the memoir, perhaps?

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Yeah, I think I think the biggest like the thing that's made me feel the most warm and fuzzy is um I was in a prison recently and someone said uh a serving prisoner there said, I watched your show, and I told my mum to watch it. Because I remember going to visits with my brother and you know, seeing him when he just got out. And I I kind of I suppose developed this quite like perverse fixation with prison just because that's where my brother was and I missed him. And I'd be like, Yeah, I've been watching Oz, or I've been watching Scum, or I've been watching like these like intensely violent prison dramas um that were on when I was a teenager, and and he was like, Don't watch that, please please don't watch that, you know. And I remember when Time came out a few years ago, you know, um Time's Brilliant, and I I I love Jimmy McGovern and I love that series. But a lot of people were saying, I remember being in the classroom and people saying, like, yeah, I've told my mum, don't watch it, don't watch it, you know, because in the first seven minutes, someone gets shanked, someone gets jugged, someone gets hit with a snooker ball. It's all like um, so so when people say to me, like, Oh yeah, I told my brother to watch it, I told my mum to watch it, it's like, oh well, that's really fitting because it's about that's what the show is about. It's about a family that have been fractured and divided by prison. And now, you know, this this one character, Dan, doesn't really feel a sense of belonging with his own family because he's one of the ones who hasn't spent time behind the walls. So um the fact that families want to watch it together is like, oh, it's that's probably that's what it's meant to do, you know.

Host 49:21

Definitely, definitely. And I think it's it ties perfectly to what you said before about um you know, prisons needing to be more transparent and how it's really important what we are putting as well um in television. So to have a show like this, um to really open that conversation of what prisons are like and um and your students and what conversations um you're having, I think is just um beyond relevant and beyond um important to have um uh discussed.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

Great. Well, you've you've engaged so thoroughly with the the book. Thank you so much. You've read it so closely. Uh when you were saying bits like, oh, there's a section where you say this, and I'm like, oh my god, like did I say

Final Thoughts On Prison Stories

SPEAKER_03 50:10

that? Oh my god, like let me check, let me check. So, but thank you for engaging with it so thoroughly.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Of course, of course.