![]() ![]() Their words provide a revealing snapshot of what life is really like behind bars. The Howard League, which campaigns for prison reform and this year celebrated its 150th birthday, placed an advert in the prison newspaper, Inside Time, asking prisoners to record what they did and felt on 2 September this year – the 290th birthday of John Howard, the 18th-century reformer from whom the charity gets its name.Īll of the entries have been anonymised, and all the prisoners are male unless otherwise stated.įrances Crook, CEO of the Howard League, said: “We would like to thank the men, women, and children, held in prisons across the country, who kept diaries as part of this project to mark the Howard League’s 150th birthday. But there are moments of levity too: One diarist notes the irony of sitting in his cell watching TV prison drama Orange Is the New Black, while another is proud to have developed a tan as "my little protest against the system". The extracts also lay bare the boredom of prison life, where an ageing population sometimes struggles to access healthcare and clean clothing, let alone rehabilitation programmes. In a series of 170 diaries – obtained by the Howard League for Penal Reform and published exclusively by BuzzFeed News – those inside have told of being endlessly locked in “airless cells”, working in “sweatshop” conditions, and coping with food “not fit for human consumption”. As prisons in England and Wales continue to be hit by steep rises in violence against staff, a record number of suicides, and an explosion in the use of new psychoactive substances, prisoners' diaries have given unprecedented insight into what life is really like for the 85,000-strong prison population. ![]()
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