By Rona Epstein, Honorary Research Fellow at Coventry Law School, Coventry University
In March 2024 we published a blog on this site. In that blog we recounted that a recent report by the Prison Inspectorate of the women’s prison HMP Eastwood Park was shocking. And we asked for collaboration in contacting ‘voices from the inside’, to hear what prisoners themselves had to say.
We now publish our Report VOICES FROM THE INSIDE, edited by Rebecca Grant. Here we present the testimony of Liz Bridge, former Quaker Chaplain at HMP Wandsworth, together with the evidence given to us by current and former prisoners, as well as their relatives and friends, compelling accounts from both women’s and men’s prisons.
The Prison Inspectorate’s reports recently have been shocking.
On Eastwood Park Prison it reported mentally ill women held in cells with blood spattered walls – the blood being left uncleaned after self-harm incidents by previous prisoners.
Mr Taylor, Chief Inspector of Prisons, wrote:
“Some of the most vulnerable women across the prison estate were held in an environment wholly unsuitable for their therapeutic needs.
“The levels of distress we observed were appalling. No prisoner should be held in such terrible conditions.”
An Inspectorate Report is a lifeless (but important!) document. It is quite different to hear the actual words of someone talking about their loved one, someone they care about, reporting the conditions in which they live.
In December 2023 the former Quaker chaplain to Wandsworth Prison, Liz Bridge, spoke out loud and clear about the dreadful conditions she found while working there. Her account, given at a meeting organised by Wandsworth Quakers on 5 December 2023, has spread many ripples.
We believe that the stories of prisoners and their families and friends matter; their voices must be heard. There must be change.
The Oakdale Trust funded this project. We are grateful to them for their support.