In conversation …

The Anglican Bishop for HM Prisons, the Right Revd Rachel Treweek, led a visit to the Netherlands to discover more about their criminal justice system as she continues with her commitment to inspire alternatives to prison in England and Wales.

In this podcast Bishop Rachel, Pia Sinha (CEO of the Prison Reform Trust) and Andrea Coomber (Chief Executive for the Howard League for Penal Reform), reflect on what they learnt during the visit and their key takeaways from the meetings that took place and the visit of PI Alphen aan den Rijn prison.

This is the first of a series of podcasts on Fixing our Prison System. Bishop Rachel will be joined by influencers and change-makers as they ask the questions – what is prison really for and more importantly what could the alternatives be? 

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Bishop Rachel, the Bishop of Gloucester and Anglican Bishop for Prisons in England and Wales, is joined in conversation by Sarah Burrows, founder and CEO of the charity Children Heard and Seen. Together they explore the often-overlooked impact of parental imprisonment on children, particularly those living in the community who may have little or no relationship with the parent in prison. 

Sarah emphasises that support systems leave many children invisible, unsupported, and unable to process feelings of shame, stigma, grief, or confusion. The conversation highlights how children’s experiences vary widely — even within the same family. Both argue for policy reform, better training for schools, and a more curious, compassionate public response — one that recognises children as innocent parties experiencing what Sarah describes as an “invisible punishment”, and that listens carefully to what children themselves say they need. 

Bishop Rachel (Anglican Bishop for HM prisons) in conversation with Junior Smart. 

Junior Smart is a youth violence consultant, trainer, and someone with lived experience of the Criminal Justice System. He's the founder of SOS Project, which began in a prison cell and grew to become one the UK's most recognised interventions, tackling violence.

She goes on, "The idea that a teenager can give birth on the concrete floor of a cell with no support, no medical help, nobody with her in a women's prison ... I don't think most taxpayers expect anything like that to happen when a woman is sent to prison, I think it's absolutely shocking."

Bishop Rachel says, "Surely in the big picture we want to create stronger communities, and yet we still are obsessed with this idea of punishment."

Bishop Rachel talks to David Shipley about his experiences and specific suggestions for ways that the criminal justice system could be transformed.

David Shipley has worked as a consultant for HM Inspectorate of Prisons and Probation, and has lived experience of being in prison himself. He says, “While I was in prison, I became radicalised. I think by the state of the prison system, by the way that it wastes time and lives, and ruins and destroys instead of healing and building, and changing in a positive way. So I promised myself that after I was out, I would speak up, campaign, write about it.”

In this eighth podcast in the series of 'Holding the Key: Unlocking the door to doing prison differently', Bishop Rachel finds herself in the interview seat as Dilys Alam asks a series of questions to find out more about Bishop Rachel's role with the Justice System.

The Anglican Bishop for HM Prisons, the Right Revd Rachel Treweek, in conversation with Vicky Fobel, Head of the Better Justice Partnership.

In this sixth podcast in the series of 'Holding the Key: Unlocking the door to doing prison differently', Edwina tells us, "If we are looking to bring people out [of prison], let's look at the people who shouldn't be there in the first place. Lots of women who are in prison in the female estate; they really don't pose a risk to the public, most of them pose a risk to themselves."

Talking about the vision for Hope Street, a secure accommodation project for women leaving prison, she said "I sat down with a team of people to see if we could design the gold-standard, replicable, scalable-model, for women to be able to be sentenced to the community, that would work with probation, the police, the judiciary, children's services, drug and alcohol services. We thought if you really mapped all that - we should see if we could possibly create it. So we did."

"We designed the building, it's now operational with the staff in it. We have beds for 24 women and their children, but then crucially we have a housing pathway, so they have step-down accommodation so they can move on and start living more independently."

Bishop Rachel responds, "It's fantastic to see how you've inhabited that vision. It's also utterly fulfilling everything we've been saying. Not only do we think it's a good idea, but the evidence supports that. And you've made that happen -if you hadn't pushed for this and are now producing more evidence to show that it works, this would not have happened."

Bishop Rachel says, "There should be an equivalent for Hope Street in every county."

The Anglican Bishop for HM Prisons, the Right Revd Rachel Treweek, in conversation with John Podmore. In this fifth podcast in the series of 'Holding the Key: Unlocking the door to doing prison differently', John tells us, "We should be locking up people we’re scared of, not mad at."

John was a prison governor and inspector of prisons, and now acts as consultant with a particular interest in human rights and prison anti-corruption.

Bishop Rachel and John discuss potential ways to change the approach to using prisons and sentencing; "We don’t have prison problems, we have community problems."

The Anglican Bishop for HM Prisons, the Right Revd Rachel Treweek, in conversation with Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons.

In this fourth podcast in the series of 'Holding the Key: Unlocking the door to doing prison differently', Bishop Rachel and Charlie Taylor talk about the current overcrowding crisis in prisons. Charlie tells us, "We have more prisoners than we have capacity for. In many prisons we have enormous levels of overcrowding. Like Leeds, where something like 80% of prisoners are living in overcrowded accommodation. And what that means in reality; you've got two men sharing a single cell designed by the Victorians 150 years ago, to house one man, in conditions that are often squalid and enormously challenging."