Category: coronavirus

Facial Recognition Unmasked

Author: | 10 Nov 2020

Face coverings are a fact of life in the pandemic. It is mandatory to wear them in shops, schools and on university campuses. Slowly they’re becoming part of prison life too.

Recently masks have sparked a fresh debate about police surveillance.

Elliot Tyler, a Longford scholar who is a cyber security and forensics student at Portsmouth University has been delving into the controversial policing technology…

For a long time, I have been wary of facial recognition technology – software capable of matching a human face, either from from a digital image or a video frame, against a database of ‘wanted’ faces – used without people’s consent. I moved away from my London birthplace three years ago but returned to the city every so often to meet and have a drink with school friends. It always concerned me that my evening could be brought to a halt at any point by police officers scanning my face and determining I was somebody ‘wanted’, which I most certainly was not, having paid any debt to society that I’d previously owed.

Despite being very familiar with the ways of the police through my work as a police cadet, I did not trust them to exercise their duties impartially, responsibly and fairly. Little did I know that before long a global pandemic would see people hiding their faces, potentially disrupting the captured images.

Broken Images 

In the summer, a document leaked to an American publication outlined the worries of US agencies that face masks, now commonplace due to the COVID-19 pandemic, could ‘break’ facial recognition. The document, released as part of what became known as the ‘BlueLeaks’ hack, emphasised the possibility of ‘violent adversaries’ using protective masks to evade biometric identification algorithms – in other words, donning a mask to cheat identification.

Now that coronavirus has changed the world, and face coverings routinely cover the mouth and nose – key distinguishing features for anyone – the debate has taken on a new dimension. Commentators from both sides of the debate have raised concerns about how the wearing of masks could affect the accuracy of the technology.

To this day, it remains unclear, due to the regular emergence of new, conflicting survey results, whether the general public supports this new policing initiative. Opponents of the technology suggest there is a risk to citizens’ privacy. In a free world, individuals are supposedly allowed a choice when it comes to matters of consent.  However sceptics observe that permission can be simply non-existent when it comes to facial recognition. And anyway, importantly, those accused of crimes still have rights. Supporters claim if you go about your daily life in a law-abiding way, you have nothing to fear and everything to gain from effective identification to keep our streets safer.

What the experts say

I took it upon myself to consult three facial recognition experts with different perspectives on this hotly debated policing technique. First up, Chief Superintendent Paul Griffiths, the President of the Superintendents’ Association.

‘The public needs to be kept safe,’ Griffiths said to me firmly. ‘And that is achieved using CCTV, ANPR (number plate recognition), speed cameras, and other surveillance technologies.’

Our conversation continued with me citing US academics, who claim that effective facial recognition technology can prevent false arrests by quickly and accurately identifying faces.

‘It certainly isn’t the only method we rely on.’ He was keen not to be too gung-ho. ‘Data involves responsibility,’ I was told. ‘We need to be satisfied that the use of any data can support the police in their goals.’

The list of benefits from effective use of facial recognition, according to Griffiths, are early detection of ‘wanted’ individuals, allowing the efficient scrambling of police resources so officers can secure themselves and the public, possibly saving lives. Police officers can, therefore, spend their time maintaining order on the streets instead of searching aimlessly for suspects. It was explained to me that developments in technology should be embraced by police forces, but only where its use is necessary and proportionate. Police will operate with scrutiny, accountability and oversight when using personal data, Griffiths emphasised.

Lord Blair, Longford Lecture 2019

As a brief side note, in November 2019, at the annual Longford Lecture, I paid close attention to a delivery by Lord Ian Blair, former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 2005 to 2008. Lord Blair explored the topic of ‘Where Next for Policing and Criminal Justice’. Concerned about a ‘tattered’ justice system, he promoted the wider roll-out of body worn cameras for future effective and consensual policing. Yet, surprisingly, he neglected to mention the ever-emerging matter of authorities’ use of facial recognition technology. The omission still intrigues me – but that’s one for another time.

Back to my second expert in this fraught field. Richard Lewis, recently retired Deputy Chief Constable of South Wales Police held a similar view to Griffiths. ‘Facial recognition can be a powerful technology for crime detection and prevention,’ he told me, adding, ‘when used appropriately.’

South Wales Police were this summer subject to legal action, brought by a father of two, Ed Bridges, who objected to his image being captured on a lunch break in Cardiff City Centre and again at a peaceful protest. With the support of the campaign group Liberty, the Court of Appeal found that the specific uses of facial recognition were unlawful.

But the Court also found its use was a ‘proportionate’ interference with human rights, as the benefits outweighed the impact on Bridges.

After the ruling, South Wales Police, who have used this type of identification method at big sporting fixtures, concerts, and other large events since 2017, said they could work with the ruling. A ‘factsheet’ produced by South Wales Police, which was sent to me before the Court decision, shows that in 2019, facial recognition technology resulted in twenty-two arrests and disposals at Welsh music and sporting events. It also rebuts common concerns about gender or racial bias within the technology. Typically, black men are thought to be disproportionately picked out.

The future of the surveillance business

Whatever the effect of face masks on the camera technology, I expect civil liberty campaigners will continue to voice their concerns about the premise of this policing technology. London’s Metropolitan Police is said to be the largest police force outside of China to use facial recognition, dubbed an ‘authoritarian mass surveillance tool’ by Big Brother Watch. Their spokesperson told me that public spaces are being turned into biometric surveillance zones, without any clear legal basis or authority, and contrary to the police rationale. They emphasised concerns about biased targeting of people of a certain ethnicity or demographic.

Be under no illusion, surveillance is big business. At the start of the year it was estimated that by 2024, the global facial recognition market would generate £5.5 billion of revenue. Of course, in the new post-COVID world, that may no longer be the case.

So where does this contentious technology head in the policing of tomorrow? In England and Wales, the police’s technology is still in a developmental stage, with three universities currently working with the Home Office to improve recognition accuracy.

This is by no means the end of the debate; in fact, I would say it’s merely the beginning.

 

A virtual internship: three months flew past

Author: | 30 Sep 2020

My time as an intern at the Criminal Justice Alliance by Jason Grant

It is a Friday afternoon on the last day of my internship with the Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA). I have just finished a Zoom call with Director Nina Champion and Sarah, a new recruit and member of an expert group who use their experience and expertise to inform the CJA’s work to create a fair and effective criminal justice system. I can honestly say that my knowledge, skills and experience have been put to good use over the past three months and I am glad to have made the connection through the Longford Trust.

To rewind a little…

It all started back in March 2020, when COVID-19 was making its way through Europe and all my freelance work as a public speaker and trainer was being postponed or cancelled. I was looking for an opportunity and heard about the three-month internship with the CJA – which, in case you aren’t familiar with their work, is a coalition of 160 organisations working together to create a fairer and more effective criminal justice system. I had met Nina at a criminal justice event a couple of years ago and decided I would put myself forward. To give you a bit of background about me, I am a former scholar, graduating in 2016 with a Criminology Masters from Glasgow University and am now a trustee with the Longford Trust. I felt well positioned to make the most of the opportunity.

Initially, I had some trepidation about starting an internship during a pandemic, with all work being done remotely. A week before full lockdown, I went to London to visit the office and have a conversation with Nina about what I would be doing. I left the meeting with a good sense of the organisation and felt that I would be in good hands.

How did I work – virtually?

From the first team meeting -via Microsoft Teams- I was made to feel very welcome, and I quickly became an integral member of the team. My usual working day would begin with a catch-up call with the team member I was working with to discuss the plan for the day. I would then spend the day conducting research and writing, interviewing people, reading through transcripts and writing up my thoughts and findings. It was a well-thought out plan and I felt supported from the start.

On Mondays, I worked with Jamie, the Communications and Engagement Officer, to help produce a briefing on what makes good criminal justice reporting. I interviewed journalists, academics and campaigners to explore how the media can cover criminal justice in a more sensitive and constructive way, and how it can improve public understanding of complex criminal justice issues. The briefing will be published ahead of the CJA Media Awards later this year.

On Wednesdays I worked with Amal, the Policy Officer, to help produce a report looking at whether restorative practice (which brings those harmed by crime or conflict and those responsible for the harm into communication to repair the harm and find a positive way forward) can disrupt what is often called the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’. In other words, whether this kind of communication can slow the depressing path from school exclusion to prison sentence.

It’s a complex subject. I did lots of reading to gain a full understanding of the issue, though I had some knowledge from previous work I’d done with The Forgiveness Project. I then found and interviewed restorative practitioners working all over the country in schools and people working in alternative education provision and youth offending settings. Everyone was very generous with their time. The report will form part of the CJA’s Responding Restoratively Series, following the first report, Responding Restoratively to COVID-19.

On Fridays, I worked with the CJA Director Nina to develop a proposal for a leadership programme for people who have personal experience of the justice system. The idea of the programme is to enable people with first-hand expertise to gain more influence in the criminal justice system and to progress into leadership positions. I was tasked with pulling together ideas, researching potential partners and speaking with inspiring ‘lived experience’ leaders from across the country. I even had to present my findings to members of the CJA’s Lived Experience Expert Group, who had been involved in CJA’s Change from Within report. They asked some tough questions for me to go away and consider!

Saving the best until last….

The highlight of my internship was a global virtual meeting with fantastic practitioners from across Africa, Europe, Oceania, South America, North America and the Caribbean, through a worldwide prison reform movement Incarceration Nations Network. I had the opportunity to meet a former participant of a leadership programme and her colleagues at Project Rebound, which supports people leaving prison to go to university. Being a trustee at the Longford Trust, and former Longford scholar, I was really interested to hear about all the support they offer to their students in California.

Some of my low points were due to technology. This included the recording of an interview becoming corrupt and unusable, I can still feel the sinking feeling. And my Wi-Fi dropping out midway through calls. I suspect I am not the only one who has experienced such mishaps during the pandemic!

All in all, I had a great and wide-ranging experience – the three months flew past. Like all good things, the internship has come to an end, but I look forward to future opportunities to help out and I’m glad the CJA has hired another Longford scholar to help with this year’s CJA Awards.

*

Postscript from the seaside:

A week later, the CJA team hopped on a train to visit me at the seaside, where I live. We walked along the pebbled beach in bright sunshine, eating fish and chips, getting to know each other better – face-to-face. It is quite surreal meeting people who you have only ever seen through a computer screen. Impressively we managed not to discuss work too much. I was very touched that the team came to visit me, and I wish the CJA and its members the best of luck for the future.

Life in Lockdown: Six Months On

Author: | 15 Sep 2020

                                                  

 

 

Life in Lockdown: Six Months On

Last Summer our scholar Shaun wrote a blog which struck a chord and shocked in equal measure. Describing a cycle of prison, release and homelessness, he told of being given a tent to sleep in after one prison sentence.

Here Shaun, who is studying a distance learning degree, writes about his experience of lockdown…

In early March I was ready to start a new life. I was moving out of supported accommodation and had high hopes of getting a job to support my studies. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way…

A week after I moved into my new home, my plans were scuppered by the national lockdown. To say it was a massive blow to me is an understatement. An avid gym goer – as much for my mental well being as the physical benefits -overnight I lost something fundamental to my recovery from a serious and chaotic drinking problem. I didn’t do much in life apart from study and go to the gym. And my world was pretty solitary after cutting off negative people to better my life and create a better future for myself. To compound my isolation part-time work opportunities had fallen away.

Here I was, alone, locked off from the world.  Would I be able to cope?

I found myself getting quite low. Things were looking grim.

My old life was haunting me. The new block of flats I’d moved to were filled with people who were ignoring government advice. I witnessed people walking around like zombies scoring, taking drugs and drinking in the communal areas. As a former addict, it offered dangerous temptation.

Lockdown delivered another major personal blow. Contact with my mother ceased just as I was rebuilding a relationship with her.

Even my face-to-face contact with my mentor – we meet here and there – had fallen victim to Covid-19. We spoke via telephone and email, but it wasn’t the same as meeting up and talking in person.

I felt helpless – locked in. Able only to leave the house for essential items and no gym, it wasn’t long before I fell into drinking again. Every time I went shopping, I’d substitute a food item for alcohol. This soon escalated into a serious drinking pattern.

Suffice to say, lockdown played havoc with my life. Old styles of behaviour were creeping back. I felt myself falling deeper and deeper into a sea of depression and bad decision making. I felt like giving up on my degree.  Now, once again, I was allowing alcohol to get a hold of me. I couldn’t stay there. It was a one-way road to self-destruction if I did.

All hope seemed lost. I had to do something.

I had sought to escape supported accommodation for a long time. Now, alone, with what seemed like the world falling apart around me, I begged to go back. At times I would randomly burst into tears, although I’d never let anybody see me cry. Men don’t cry right? At least that’s what I’ve been taught. I felt weak.

It was in mid-May that I received a glimmer of hope.

I had a move date, June 3rd.

Finally, I could see a way out of the mess I was in. I had come so far, now I’d gone back. I thought I was ready to live independently again, I was wrong. Perhaps had this whole Covid-19 thing not occurred, I may well have succeeded in my plan? Who knows? It’s impossible to say. Anyway, June 3rd rolled around, and I moved back into supported accommodation. It was a massive relief.

Fast forward two months and a lot has changed for the better. Slowly, the pandemic restrictions are being relaxed. I am back at the gym, hooray!  Life in lockdown has affected us all in some form or other. I am very grateful that the Longford Trust never gave up on me and that my mentor continued to reach out to me.

Getting paid work continues to be tough. Instead, I am volunteering a few days a week with a local charity, Emmaus, something I can do alongside my studies. In the long run, this will also close the gap on my CV help my chances with future work. And I enjoy working with the charity. I give what I can in terms of time, but I receive so much more. I am building new relationships and forming a kind of social life, determined to break away from life as a recluse.

By the time you read this, you’ll realise, life in lockdown for me has been one hell of a roller-coaster ride. I have found hope again.

I hope that one day, I will be ready to live alone again, fully independent and able to deal with whatever life throws at me. It’s important to remember that we are never alone, even if it seems that way. We mustn’t be afraid to ask for help no matter what is going on around us.

 

A writer & Longford scholar compare notes on how to make prisons places of reform

Author: | 28 Jul 2020

Going to prison wasn’t part of the plan. Neither for writer and filmmaker Chris Atkins nor for classics student and Longford scholar Nahshon.

Here they meet to discuss what they have learnt from their time inside…

Chris Atkins is a BAFTA nominated film maker who was sent to prison for tax fraud in 2016. I have also been to prison and had my studies interrupted. I was keen to meet Chris about his recent book A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner where he talks about his experiences living at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.  Due to the COVID-19 outbreak the interview took place on Zoom, something I was apprehensive about at first; it can be daunting enough building a rapport face-to-face, let alone in the virtual world. I shouldn’t have worried. A calm, probably brought on by our shared experiences, quickly set the tone.

Chris Atkins went into prison, as many others undoubtedly have, frightened, broken and despondent. Despite sharing those feelings with most newly sentenced prisoners, Chris Atkins was, for want of a better term, no ‘ordinary’ prisoner.

A public school, white, Oxford University educated film maker, Chris, like me, kept a diary to  process the flush of emotions that besieged him in the early stages of his sentence. A record he continued to keep in Wandsworth, his first prison.

 I, a young black student studying at a Russell Group University, also decided a diary would help me to make sense of my time behind bars. My diary was purely personal. I wrote about daily feelings and challenges. Chris, however, went further. With his background as a filmmaker he had a unique skill to bring good to an ostensibly glum state of affairs- the skill of storytelling.

It was not initially Chris’ intention to produce a dissection of the inadequacies of the UK prison system. However, early on in his sentence he began to understand just how broken the prison system was and how unconducive it is to rehabilitation.

The impact of relationships: inside and out

The focal point of the early part of our discussion was the relationships you form and maintain inside, and what effect this might have on rehabilitation.

In A Bit of a Stretch, I am struck by the times Chris received letters and his cellmate got none. I too experienced this. In fact, Chris and I both got lots of letters, which felt like symbols of true love from those we were separated from. A simple handwritten letter brings a loved one close. That said, it is quite normal for people in prison not to receive a letter in a week, even a month. A quick side note here, phone calls are extortionately priced, so some people experience long periods of silence from loved ones.

I recall one cellmate of mine expecting letters which never came. Chris and I both noted the sense of guilt we felt in these situations. At times, I would hide my letters for fear of inflicting jealousy on my fellow inmates. I need to be honest here though, staying in touch properly was by no means plain sailing for either of us. Visits were ridiculously hard to organise. For the first month or so of his sentence Chris couldn’t see his young son, despite providing all the required information.

It is often argued, and rightly so, that maintaining the relationships between friends and family on the outside is the key to rehabilitation. It is not in the government’s power to force prisoners’ families to write them letters. However, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask them not to place obstacles in the way of prisoners and their loved ones. I can tell you from what I saw, if people don’t have contact with their family and friends on the outside, there is a distinct risk they replace that need for contact with others on the inside who may not be a positive influence.  You see this with younger prisoners who can be vulnerable to older, more ‘seasoned’ prisoners.

As Chris discovered, the relationships you form in prison is a game changer. Take one cellmate, Martyn, who was one of the only reasons he was able to get through the first few months of his sentence, ‘the thin line between sanity and madness’ he called it. For those who stumble across to the latter side of the line there is scant support.

The art of listening in a ‘warehouse for the mentally ill’

Chris spent much of his sentence working as a Listener: these people were tasked with talking to seriously troubled prisoners who didn’t want to deal with officers. It often involved talking people out of suicide. Wandsworth prison, where Chris spent the first half of his sentence, was in his words: ‘a warehouse for the mentally ill’. Most of these troubled minds were ignored which could and has resulted in fatal consequences.

Take the tragic case of teenager Osvaldas Pagirys, for example. He was an 18-year-old who was arrested for stealing sweets. Despite being found with a noose on five separate occasions in prison he was largely ignored and killed himself.

Prisoners should not be babied but how can this be justice?

Time to be bold: rethinking education, work and beyond

For myself and writer Chris this is where education can offer a lifeline – not just in terms of personal happiness and safety but also as a means of staying on a generally positive track. Chris Atkins has a bold proposal,

‘If prisoners are literate, they are less likely to reoffend […] give them a month off their sentence if they pass GCSE English.’

An outlandish proposal perhaps but illustrates a potent point. It is no secret that offenders have had disproportionately vulnerable childhoods, often excluded from school. Many in prison are there because of a failure of the British education and social care systems. No crime is excusable, mine or anyone’s. However, it is to my mind not unreasonable to ask that people who were failed by the system are adequately supported by the system. Perhaps it would be excessively generous to give prisoners time off their sentence as an incentive to educate themselves, perhaps not.

There needs to be a serious rethink of how to encourage prisoners into work and away from crime.

Too often prisons are universities of crime. They don’t have to be and they shouldn’t be.

Chris and I are living proof of this. I have successfully resumed my studies; Chris has written a book and is raising public awareness of the failings of the criminal justice system. We have been able to do this with educational tools and supportive families at our disposal.

Hope drove my rehabilitation. Hope that one day I have a realistic chance of success; a stable job, a roof over my head, a family and the means to provide for them. For Chris and I there was always light at the end of the tunnel, just as there should be for every prisoner inside.

 

The power of letter-writing

Author: | 6 Apr 2020

The power of a letter in a crisis and beyond by mentor Clare Lewis

 ….like someone extending their hand out, reaching across a divide

In the current Covid-19 lockdown, a hand of friendship in the form of a letter could be an extremely simple and effective way for mentors to help break through the visible and invisible walls of isolation that surround their mentees. Especially if they are in prison.

For the past three years, I have had the privilege of mentoring James (as I am going to call him here), a talented and hardworking Longford Scholar studying inside for an OU degree. The opportunities for face-to-face meetings at the two prisons he has been in so far are limited – I aim to visit once an academic term – and digital forms of contact are not an option. Although the prison education officers are responsive to emails and willing to act as go-betweens, I feel it’s not fair to take advantage of their good nature. So, in order to maintain more regular and specific contact with James, I have taken to letter-writing.

In the footsteps of history...

We are following a path starting in Ancient India, Ancient Egypt through Rome, Greece and China. Archives of correspondence, whether for personal, diplomatic or business reasons, are also an invaluable primary source for historical research. In the 17th and 18th century letters were used to self-educate as well as offering the opportunity to practice critical reading, self-expressive writing, polemical writing, and the exchange of ideas with like-minded others.

One of the first novels, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, was composed entirely of letters by a daughter to her parents, the epistolary method giving the novel its sense of realism. In today’s digital world letters tend to be the generated by computer, written for business reasons and arrive in brown envelopes. A handwritten letter is a luxury.

A unique personal touch….

I initiated my letter-writing with much more humble ambitions – a desire to let James know that I was thinking of him and supporting him, albeit not in person. I can only imagine how much motivation it takes to knuckle down to work when you are remote learning. Fortunately, he is an incredibly self-motivated scholar and probably doesn’t need prompts, but I hoped that a letter would help him feel connected to the wider world and more specifically to the Longford Trust network.

Whatever the intention, the impact of a letter, however brief or mundane, cannot be overestimated. A letter is capable of generating a tangible feeling. It’s as if someone has extended their hand out and reached across a divide. It is akin to a person actually being in a room with you.

Letters are also powerful tools to convey kinship and thoughtfulness. The idea that someone has taken time out of his or her day  – everyone has other stuff to do – to sit down and write, find an envelope, look up the address, get a stamp and finally post it can really boost how someone feels and lift a mood. The words go way beyond what is actually written on the page bringing the writer’s personality and voice to life, similar to reading a novel where it’s possible to create a whole visual picture as you read.

What to talk about ….

Like everyone, I can find a blank piece of paper daunting. Have I got anything interesting to say? Can I express myself well enough? What should I talk about? What would James like to hear about? But I’ve decided it is better to not worry about these things and just write, unfettered by any worries of whether it is going to be good enough, long enough, interesting enough.

It almost doesn’t matter in the end. It’s the thought that counts and the sentiment it conveys. Having said that, James does write a very accomplished letter, so I do try hard to match his eloquence!

In the context of writing to James I am sometimes unsure if I am bound by any rules of what might be considered suitable topics of conversation. Are letters subject to censorship? Can I include press cuttings? But I am confident the team at the Longford Trust can answer any questions I might have.

PS Don’t forget…..

Before writing this blog, I asked the team if they had any advice. Jacob Dunne, who moderates the trust’s secure online platform for scholars and mentors (contact him at slack@longfordtrust.org to find out more), made the excellent point that obtaining stamps can be a problem for inmates. So from now I will include a stamp in any letter I write to James.

However, I am conscious that when I write I don’t expect a response. It is something done for its own sake. So I will always include a proviso that the stamp can be used for someone else.

 

 

If you are a scholar or mentor keeping in touch by letter we provide a confidential forwarding service through our PO Box address: Longford Trust, PO Box 64302, London, NW6 9JP. We recommend letters to scholars in prison include a stamped addressed envelope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isolation: an expert survivor’s guide

Author: | 20 Mar 2020

Isolation: an expert survivor’s guide by artist and former Longford scholar Lee Cutter

I know a bit about isolation. In fact, after three years in prison I am an expert.  Through this coronavirus crisis people keep asking me, ‘What’s it like in isolation? How do you cope?’ as they deal with anxiety and worry about separation from friends, colleagues and family. Everyone is searching for reassurance and tips to cope with curtailed freedom, albeit at home.

It’s got me thinking.

They say your first day in prison is the toughest. For me it came about six months into my sentence. The first day in a young offenders prison was certainly confusing and a struggle, my whole understanding of the world feeling flipped upside down, but I still had some freedom, as prison goes. This was because I was on remand, waiting for a judge to sentence me. I could work, attend classes in education, mix with others in prison – ‘associate’ as they call it inside, and go to the gym.

Just a few months on, I started to understand the environment, in an odd way, I felt part of a community. Then I was sent to Crown Court to receive my sentence. At that time, the now thankfully abolished indeterminate sentence was popular. It was a lottery whether I’d get one, carrying the real fear of never knowing when I might ever be free again. But my case was adjourned, pushed to another date. It was in the next, different young offenders prison where the pain of isolation really hit.

In limbo, I spent days and months on end in a single cell with only myself for company, locked up for 24 hours a day, with access to two phone calls and two showers a week. The prison was overcrowded, understaffed, and those under 18 were given priority to work and education. I was unlucky I was 18 years old. Though looking back, my mind felt a lot younger and I had never experienced anything like this before.

In the first few weeks I distracted myself with the television and the radio, anything to get a sense of a world beyond my four walls. During the day I’d talk with my next-door neighbour through the gap in the pipes at the end of the cell. It was at night I’d struggle with my thoughts. It’s an understatement to say the next few months were a challenge. I’d think, and think, and think. I’d think about the mistakes I had made, how they had affected people, I’d think about my family, the events that led to my situation. I wondered if it would be like this forever. It was sending me crazy. I knew I had to change, and that I’d need to teach myself how.

And then an unexpected opportunity presented itself – a pencil.

An officer had left a pencil in my cell by accident, I used it to write down my thoughts and feelings onto any scrap of paper I could gather. It took the negative thoughts out of my head, and by seeing them in front of me, it somehow helped me to understand where they might have come from, how I could change them. I began making drawings of my cell, I’d draw the sink, the bed, the window, anything in front of me. When I ran out of paper, I would draw into bars of standard prison issue soap. The soap was free on the wing and it was much more accessible than a piece of paper.

Funnily enough, I didn’t see myself as an artist, I found a creative side within me. I didn’t know anything about art, I don’t even think I liked art much at the time but I knew that making was helping me.

A few months later I was sentenced, avoiding the dreaded indeterminate sentence. This time I moved prisons again. In the new prison I had access to more arts materials, more time out of my cell. Officers and other inmates saw my drawings and soon started to give me photographs of their loved ones and pets to draw. They’d ‘pay’ me in toiletries and food. Looking back, I guess these were my first commissions.

It’s odd thinking back to those times. It feels like a different me then, and yet those times, and the isolation, have contributed to the person and the artist I am today. I’ve been out of prison for ten years now, have completed a BA degree in Fine Art, with support from the Longford Trust, got a postgraduate at the Royal Drawing School. I now have a much sought-after job with Koestler Arts – encouraging people in prisons and other secure settings to engage in the arts. I am proud to say I have achieved what many artists never manage, exhibiting in the prestigious Royal Academy, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Christie’s, the upmarket auction house and the Royal Festival Hall. And I am now a mentor for an artist through the Longford Trust who is studying a distance -learning degree in prison. I often think about what life is like for him being creative in his prison, I can see confinement shapes his work.

As we all face the isolation of coronavirus and restrictions in our daily lives and relationships I wouldn’t wish this uncertain period of confinement on anyone. One silver- lining is perhaps the insight it offers, a window into imprisonment. The lack of control, unable to go out when you feel like it, prevented from learning in a classroom or library when you choose, no longer seeing or hugging a grandparent –the punishing impact of not doing what used to be normal. I hope and trust we will all dig deep in this coronavirus, finding some hidden talents – as myself and my mentee have done with art. Spare a thought for the 80, 0000 plus men, women and children in overcrowded, often dirty prisons across England and Wales who know isolation and resourcefulness all too well. Next time someone says prison is too ‘soft’ remember this time and remind them what it felt like during the coronavirus crisis.

 

 

 

Find out more about Lee and his hand-made book An Inside Story, a hand bound with prison bedsheets and visitation shirts here: https://www.koestlerarts.org.uk/shop/books/an-inside-story/