From College to Clink
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 26 July 2019
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when top graduates work behind bars as prison officers? Lucy Ash meets young people who have forsaken lucrative careers in the City or elsewhere, for what many see as one of the world’s worst jobs. They’re part of Graduates Unlocked, a scheme which, which is trying to replicate in the prison service the success of Teach First, the programme that sends high-flyers into inner-city schools.
The aim is to raise the status and reputation of prison officers, to boost recruitment and cut reoffending. It is hoped that youthful enthusiasm plus resilience and empathy could bring a much needed revolution to the criminal justice system.
But faced with acute understaffing and assaults on prison officers at record levels, how much of a difference can the graduates make? Lucy meets a group of young men and women who are are sent to HMP Aylesbury, which holds the longest-sentenced young adult males in the English prison system. The youth offender institution in Buckinghamshire is "in a perpetual state of crisis" according to the Howard League for Penal Reform. A few months into the graduates' stint there, the youth prison is placed in special measures for keeping some inmates locked up for 23 hours a day. Can the graduates' early idealism survive the reality of life behind bars?
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Is the Daily Grind |
| 0:42.0 | getting you down? Fancy taking a break and going out into nature this summer? |
| 0:47.0 | Then look for Go Wild in BBC Sounds, a place for some of the best nature programs from Radio 4. |
| 0:55.0 | Get some inspiration for your next adventure, |
| 0:58.0 | no matter how big or small. |
| 1:02.0 | Just search for Go Wild and BBC Sounds and set out on your next adventure today. |
| 1:07.0 | Hi, I'm Riana Dillon, and this is seriously. |
| 1:17.0 | In a university lecture hall, Peter Yarwood is telling his life story. |
| 1:27.0 | I entered prison for the first time as a 15 year old child. |
| 1:31.0 | I was addicted to heroin and alcohol. |
| 1:34.6 | Peter wants to tell his audience about the huge difference a prison officer can make. |
| 1:39.6 | He used to rob to fund his habit, but more recently was congratulated by the Queen |
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