The Bishop and The Prisoner for BBC Radio 4

I have enjoyed working on this series of three half-hour programmes with Rosie Dawson for BBC Radio 4.  It was an excellent series that really got behind the issues and talked to real people both victims and criminals on how the system fails so many people.

In the three-part series, he talks to prison staff, politicians and inmates, who share their ideas about effective punishment both within prison and in Community Payback schemes. In an article in the Liverpool Echo he wrote...

“In The Forgiveness Project (piloted in High Down prison) a woman who was repeatedly raped, and who was only saved from death because her attacker’s knife broke, said forgiveness is fluid, which I thought was a fascinating phrase.
“She said ‘Sometimes I can forgive, sometimes I can’t forgive, sometimes I have to will myself to forgive’.

and we hear from some inmates about how sex offenders are probably the only group of offenders that cannot be re-habilitated and forgiven.

Bishop James put himself in the shoes of a prisoner being admitted to Liverpool Prison: 

“This included the clanging of the gates, the shutting of the cell door, measuring out the cell (12 paces by nine) and listening to the noise of the prison. Although I’ve been going into prisons for years it gave me a deeper experience of what it was like. And it is punishment.”

In this second programme, the Bishop visits training schemes which offer inmates a chance to gain new skills and may even guarantee them a job. The shoe manufacturer Timpsons has training workshops in Liverpool and Forest Bank; High Down is home to the infamous Clink restaurant where prisoners cook and serve Michelin-style food to members of the public.

In the final programme, James Jones meets ex-offenders taking part in a variety of probation initiatives in Merseyside designed to cut re-offending and "pay back" the community for crimes committed. Three men on the Persistent Priority Offender scheme commend the programme for providing the supervision they found lacking on earlier probation orders. In a moving interview a mentor with the service, Lynsey, says probation saved her from prison, crime and alcoholism and her children from life in care. There are some incredibly moving stories across the three programmes in this seriesand I can thoroughly recommend listening to the series. Bishop James proved to be an excellent and caring interviewer too.


 Listen to programme 1 on iPlayer

 Listen to programme 2 on iPlayer

 Listen to programme 3 on iPlayer