We love to hear your thoughts, your views and your questions. To contact the show, please email [email protected].

In this week's episode we answer questions from listeners inside and outside prison.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we've got two guests who, for very different reasons, have spent time in a lot of different prisons. We asked them to compare notes and tell us their best stories.

Duewaine Marshalleck-Baker was released from prison for the final time in 2016, having spent more than eighteen years in prison on and off. He now works for National Prison Radio as one of the presenters of our Takeover Days - visiting prisons across the country for a very different reason. Find out what happened when he visited his old cell in HMP The Mount.

Arthur Hagues is Head of Content Innovation for the Prison Radio Association, and the lead producer of National Prison Radio's Takeover Days. He's visited dozens of prisons in his career with the Prison Radio Association.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

To contact the show, please email [email protected].

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris Tchaikovsky was a founder of the charity Women in Prison, the charity that campaigns on behalf of women in the criminal justice system. She died in 2002, having lived an extraordinary life. Today's episode marks the end of Women's History Month and is dedicated to her life and her legacy.

Kate Fraser spent 17 years in heroin addiction, engaged in street sex work, and spending spells on remand in prison. She went on to work for the charity NACRO, and then applied for a job with Women in Prison, where she first came across the name Chris Tchaikovsky. She is now Head of Practice for Women in Prison.

Deborah Coles is the Executive Director of Inquest, the only charity providing expertise on state-related deaths and their investigations. Deborah knew Chris, having met her during her days at the University of Essex.

You can read Women in Prison's new strategy document, Together in Power 2025-2030, here.

You can buy Criminal Women, the book written by Chris Tchaikovsky with Pat Carlen and others, here.

You can find out more information about the work of Inquest here.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

To contact the show, please email [email protected].

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Lewis served a prison sentence for receiving a corrupt payment. Shortly after his release, during the pandemic, he applied for a voluntary role directing cars at a Covid vaccination centre and his application was rejected, apparently because of his criminal record. He is now an ambassador for the FairChecks campaign.

Penelope Gibbs is the Director of Transform Justice, a charity that aims to create a fair, open, compassionate justice system. They are one of the leaders of the FairChecks campaign.

You can find more information about the FairChecks campaign and sign up as a supporter here.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

To contact the show, please email [email protected].

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Mo went to prison hundreds of miles from home, his older sister would visit him but he didn't see his mum in person until he was more than two years into his sentence, and his youngest sister didn't come to visit him at all. He went five years without seeing her. How did he and his family come to these decisions, and what was it like reconnecting after all this time?

Faye Dunn went to prison as the mum of two young children, and she had a difficult decision to make about whether to expose them to the prison environment. How did she approach parenting from behind bars, and what are things like now?

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alice Dawnay founded the charity Switchback in 2008, which supports young Londoners to find a way out of the justice system. She's now part of the team that's just launched the Common Ground Justice Project, which is an initiative to find the common ground in the sometimes polarised debate around crime and justice.

Kam was helped by Switchback when he was being released from prison. He had committed an offence, but he had also been the victim of a very serious offence, losing a loved-one to knife crime. He is now part of the advisory panel for the Common Ground Justice Project.

You can find out more about the Common Ground Justice Project here.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2013, Khamran Uddin wrote a letter to the man he had violently assaulted in a random attack on a deserted railway platform. The victim was coming home from work as he did every day when Khamran seriously injured him with a baseball bat. What followed was an extraordinary meeting which changed both their lives.

Keeva Baxter is the Campaigns and Communications Manager for Why me? They're a charity that aim to advocate for the greater availability of Restorative Justice to victims and those who have committed crimes, and to improve public understanding of this radical approach to addressing harm.

You can find out more about the work of Why me? here.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Gauke is the former Conservative Member of Parliament for South West Hertfordshire, the former Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, and the Chair of the Labour government's Independent Sentencing Review.

Phil and Paula ask him about the progress of the report, delve into the politics of crime and justice, and finish with challenge around the use of the terms 'offender' and 'ex-offender' which elicits a fascinating response.

You can read part one of the report here.

You can read David's New Statesman article from October 2024 here.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richie Makepeace was just trying to keep his head down and get through his prison sentence in HMP Brixton when he was offered a job in the prison's radio production training workshop. Like many people in prison, he was really worried about whether he would be able to find employment. But after release he got offered a job helping to deliver National Prison Radio's Outside In traineeship, and is now part of the Prison Radio Association's staff team working to train others who have recently been released from prison themselves.

Nancy Prentice is the Prison Radio Association's Head of Talent Development. Her job is to spot people inside prison who might benefit from continued training in radio production after release. She oversees the Outside In traineeship and the podcast that showcases the work of the trainees.

You can listen and subscribe to the Outside In podcast here.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spice, a name for a group of synthetic drugs that have gripped prisons over the past decade, are said by researchers at Middlesex University's Drug and Alcohol Research Centre to have played a role in almost half of all non-natural deaths in prisons over a five year period.

Michael Kennedy had already used spice on one occasion before he went to prison. For him it was a way of self-medicating for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). But in prison he was fully in its grip. During a music technology class in HMP Stoke Heath he wrote a song imploring people to avoid spice. He's now clean, and is a volunteer for the Forward Trust, who support people to break the cycles of addiction and crime.

You can listen to Michael's track Mamba Attack here.

Ian Vandersluys is Head of Safety at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, having worked for almost three decades in prisons. He describes some of the shocking scenes that have accompanied the rise of synthetic drugs, the impact it has on staff and prisoners, and some of the ways prisons tackle the epidemic.

Presenters:

Phil Maguire – Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association

Paula Harriott – Chief Executive, Unlock

Producer: Andrew Wilkie

Assistant Producer: Faye Dunn

The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.

To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate. 

Registered Charity in England & Wales 1114760

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.