Thread by @edwardhenry1

I submitted to a judge in Reading earlier this year that conditions in British Prisons were worse than as documented by Michael Ignatieff within Pentonville in the 1840s.

This country is becoming ever more heartless - fuelled by tabloids who demonise those who have been deprived of liberty in our name.

Most of our short term prison population shouldn’t be there in the first place. It’s a deplorably unimaginative approach.

Then we have lifers and residual outcasts subject to IPPs - the latter broken spirits in a kafkaesque limbo, entirely unintended, but no less inhumane for that.

Those who believe the health and efficiency of the CJS is measured by high conviction rates, & harsh punishments, I pity you. You have no insight, nor comprehension of the capricious fragility of human life.

These ‘monsters’ of your imagination were once beautiful, innocent children. The never ending cycle of trauma, abuse, or abandonment in childhood that causes delinquency & criminality is not a cloying excuse, but a documented cause of addiction & aggression.

If we merely allow such children to be excluded, often for good reason to protect others, they must be provided with and urgently need another safety net to arrest their fall into the abyss.

It is the same with the neurodiverse, e.g., those with autism, ADHD, Dyspraxia, or gender dysphoria. We need to connect. Untreated ADHD classically leads to drug addiction and alcoholism, & the plight of those with autism on trial or in prison deserves condemnation.

We need another Elizabeth Fry or John Howard. Their likenesses are depicted in twin reliefs on either side of the main gate to HMP Wormwood Scrubbs. Both were the essence of humanity.

At the time of writing all this my client lies comatose in hospital. He’d been complaining of ill-health inside since 8th Nov. He was yesterday rushed into hospital.

This poor man’s plight and the suffering of his family has opened a portal in me, to a better time, to which I yearn to return. All professionals must remain detached, clearheaded and objective. But above all and despite all that restraint, we need to care. Do I care?