I’m not the same person I was twenty-five years ago. I’m a lot older. A lot more mature. Parole I: Colin and David, BBC 2023
Last year in England and Wales, 16,000 potentially dangerous criminals were considered for parole. 4,000 were released. Charged with deciding who gets out are the 346 members of the parole board. ibid.
David [4 years Fraud] will take place in front of two parole board members. ibid.
Today is Colin’s sixth parole hearing. In 2017 the parole board released him. But within six months he was recalled to prison. ibid.
‘I ain’t no fret to the community. My life is in their hands.’ Parole II: Matthew & Simran
Matthew has applied to be transferred to a D-Cat or Open Prison. ibid.
Simran Khan, 44 months, Arson & Drug Dealing. ibid.
For the Arson offence, Simran was given a one-year suspended sentence. But three months later he was arrested again. For selling cocaine and heroin. ibid.
In 2021, Simran was automatically released to serve the second half of his sentence in an approved premises in the community. But 5 months later he broke the hostel rules when alcohol and prescription drugs were found in his room. And he ran away. ibid.
Matthew’s next parole hearing date has not been set. ibid.
Jon Walker, Life (minimum tariff 5 years, 7 months), Triple armed robbery. Parole III: Jon & Bethany
John first became eligible for parole in 2011. Since then he has had six hearings. ibid.
Bethany de Cogan, 27 months, Breach of Criminal Behaviour Order. ibid.
In 2002, after serving half her sentence, Bethany was automatically released to a hostel. Three weeks later she was found intoxicated and taken to hospital. ibid.
‘I got it. I got my parole. I’m well happy.’ ibid. Jon
4 months after he release, Bethany has moved in with her mum. And hasn’t drunk any alcohol. ibid.
After 4 months in the community Jon lost his place at the hostel after being accused of dealing drugs. And was recalled to prison. ibid.
Ruben Petersen, 8 years, Grievous Bodily Harm. Parole IV: Ruben, Tom & Mark
Two years ago, the prison service moved Ruben to an open prison. He is six years into an eight-year sentence for grievous bodily harm. ibid.
Five years prior to the GBH offence, Ruben was convicted of manslaughter having killed a man in a fight. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three and a half years. ibid.
Tom Lavender, 5 years, Drug Dealing. ibid.
Mark Elwood, 5.5 years, Threats to Kill. ibid.
Two and a half months after his hearing, Mark was automatically released at the end of his custodial sentence. He failed to turn up at his hostel so Probation recalled him to prison within 24 hours. ibid.
Three weeks after he was released, Tom relapsed. He is being supervised by Probation and has not been recalled to prison. ibid.
One in three parole hearings are adjourned. Ten months after his original date, Ruben’s hearing went ahead. Following the psychological risk assessment, the panel requested further information to make their decision. Ruben is now awaiting the result. ibid.
Ben: ‘I thought it would be a good idea to rob a bank … I nicked the money, about £500.’ Parole V: Ben & Jai, evidence to Parole hearing
Ben: ‘All I can do is change that person and do better.’ ibid.
3 months after his cancer diagnosis, Ben was automatically released to serve the second half of his sentence in the community. ibid. caption
Jai: ‘I do not want this life. Done with it.’ ibid.
Ben: Release … Jai: Release. ibid.
Since being released, Ben has been recalled to prison twice for theft offences. In the community, he started using drugs again and did not attend appointments to receive the test results for his cancer. ibid.
After ten months in the community, Jai was charged with damage to police property and recalled to prison. He received a four-week sentence. ibid.
Welcome to Britain’s Alcatraz. It was designed to be impregnable. Here you’ll be locked up with some of the most fearsome criminals in the prison system. Inside HMP Whitemore, Channel 5 2023
One of the prison system’s strict regimes. ibid.
Welcome to Britain’s escape-proof fortress, HMP Whitemore. ibid.
In the middle of the remote fens of Cambridgeshire this is HMP Whitemore, one of Britain’s newest high-grace Category A prisons. ibid.
Julian is in the harshest prison in the UK; he’s not serving a sentence. And the US want to put him in prison for 175 years, about publishing to the truth about the Iraq and Afghan wars The Imprisonment of Julian Assange, wife, Al Jazeera 25.00, 2023
These publications were a game-changer. This really opened the eyes of the public to what was going on. ibid.
In 2019 the US charged him with publishing classified materials and has been fighting to extradite him. ibid. commentary
Assange was dragged out of the embassy and arrested by British police on a US extradition request in 2019. ibid.
This is a film about injustice, injustice on a scale most of us wouldn’t imagine possible in this country. It’s a film about the imprisonment of people without trial, of innocent people – first offenders, petty offenders and children. John Pilger, Guilty Until Proven Innocent, ATV 1974
Many thousands who almost unnoticed in the last few years have been caught in a system which has become almost as chaotic and repressive as in countries without even the pretence of our bill of rights. ibid.
Out of 50,00 people whom magistrates remand in custody every year, more than half of 25,000 people are later proved completely innocent or are merely fined or are given conditional discharge. ibid.
Broadmoor is no ordinary hospital. Over 150 years old it’s more secure than most prisons. It’s held many of Britain’s most notorious criminals. Paedophiles, rapists and serial killers whose horrific crimes are judged to be the result of mental illness. This was the world’s first asylum for criminal lunatics. Inside Broadmoor: Criminally Insane, Channel 5 2023
Today a newly built Broadmoor hopes to revive the caring vision of its Victorian founders. But how did it become the secretive and feared institution is was for so long? ibid.
Inside Broadmoor are around 200 men, almost all convicted of shocking crimes. ibid.
1980s Broadmoor valued security and sometimes brutal containment over treatment. ibid.
For a free nation we sure have a lot of people behind bars. Why the US Prison System is the Worst in the Developed World, Youtube 15.32, Second Thought online 2021
A system that is by just about every metric the worst in the developed world. ibid.
All the countries the US likes to cast as authoritarian hell-holes – every single one of them incarcerates fewer people and often in far more humane facilities. ibid.
Companies have always been eager to work with prisons to increase their profits … The practice of modern-day slavery. ibid.
America finds new ways to extract profits from human life. ibid.
This system is absurd by any reasonable estimation. ibid.
The United Nations has condemned them as abusive and torturous. ibid.
Modern Norwegian prisons are some of the very best in the world. ibid.
Here lies the dust of time spent cast
In forms of regulated lives,
Moulded by the mass have past
The ones the mass could not drive,
Rich law courts play – the poor are tried –
If wrong hands hold the gambling dice
Then history will ever lie,
Shields and spears can’st ne’er entice
The free to end their search in vain,
Reward the patient ones with gold,
When dying echoes Life’s refrain
We may one day know or be told.
Here lies the dust of some waif’s dream
They turn their own to mix with strife,
Plagued with sorrow will ever seem
They cannot win the game of Life. esias ryder, Down on the Ones, 1981
If you’re a prisoner with a history of violence there’s a good chance you’ll end up in here. HMP Long Lartin: A maximum security prison with a fearsome reputation. HMP Long Lartin holds some of Britain’s most brutal men. And many of them have little chance of release. It’s a place where harsh conditions and brute force have been commonplace. HMP Long Lartin: Maximum Security, Channel 5 2023
Drug debt and addiction have been a major cause of violence. ibid.
Several fatalities in Long Lartin over the years. ibid.