Alex South’s harrowing account of violence in prisons (Death on the inside: as a prison officer, I saw how the system perpetuates violence, 13 January) deserves more than our sympathy – it demands we recognise these murders and assaults not as symptoms of a broken system, but as a foghorn blaring warnings about fundamental failures.
I work in prisoner rehabilitation. I see what South describes from the other side: men whose “scaffolding” is indeed flimsy, who have accumulated trauma before and during incarceration. But I also see what happens when that changes. Our service users work in cafes, bakeries and bike shops, not because we believe in the redemptive power of bread or bicycles, but because meaningful work and purposeful activity are the foundations of desistance.
I was a prisoner. I was lucky, the prison was well staffed with experienced officers, yet the prison was still a violent place, with many prisoners self-medicating with illegal drugs.
The incidents South describes are the inevitable outcome of policy decisions that prioritise capacity over rehabilitation, containment over change and political expediency over evidence. When the House of Lords justice committee stresses the importance of education and the government agrees, then announces funding cuts, we are not witnessing administrative incompetence. We are witnessing ideological commitment to a system that creates exactly the outcomes it claims to prevent.
David Lammy inherited a crisis, yes. But until we build prisons around rehabilitation rather than simply containment, until we fund education and meaningful activity, until we staff prisons with properly trained officers who can actually see the people they’re responsible for – we are choosing to perpetuate exactly the violence and recidivism we claim to oppose.
James Stoddart
Project coordinator, the Oswin Project
• Reading Alex South’s article reminded me of the murder that occurred in a prison when I was governor. The hardest thing I have ever done was to meet with the victim’s family; I had no words to adequately explain how their son had been killed when he was in my care. The incident was a shock to staff and prisoners alike, and it hung in the air for weeks.
I am sorry that Alex experienced little support during her time in the Prison Service. On that occasion, staff did get invaluable support from the trauma team at another prison. What I think is so sad is that we are expecting people to work in environments that have become so violent. Prisons are unlikely to improve until they are properly staffed and those in custody have decent time out of their cells every day with purposeful activity, which will engage them and help improve their life chances on release.
Judith Feline
Maidstone, Kent
• The article reflects my own experience. I was hired as a horticultural instructor to build rehabilitative programmes, yet none were allowed to begin. Instead, I covered staff shortages and supervised “tea‑bag workshops” offering no skills or progression. The workshop was chaotic, poorly managed and disconnected from any rehabilitative purpose.
This contrasted sharply with the structured, evidence‑based horticulture programmes I observed in US prisons during my Churchill Fellowship. Returning made the failures stark: absent leadership, overstretched staff and activities that prepared prisoners for nothing.
Richard Eltringham
Leicester
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