TV in prison - Live music in prison
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2019
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Prison TV: Laurie Taylor considers the therapeutic role of television in the modern day jail. He talks to Victoria Knight, Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University, Leicester, and author of a new study examining the way in which TVs in cells manage the everyday life and emotions of prisoners; helping deliver both care and control. In addition, she offers insights into how technology in prison is evolving globally. They're joined by David Wilson, Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University.
Also, prison 'blues': BB King, the African American Blues musician, died on 14 May 2015. One year on, Les Back, Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, London, focused on his performances in prisons. Over a 25-year period, B.B. King performed for free in 47 different jails across America. Situating his concerts within a wider political context in which a crisis was unfolding in US prisons, Back explores the implications of King's prison 'blues' and interrogates the meaning of music behind bars. Revised repeat. Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.5 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.5 | I'm Laurie Taylor and this is a podcast for BBC Radio For's Thinking Aloud. |
| 0:37.0 | What is it like to live in a regime in which everyday pleasures and pastimes are turned into treats and rewards. |
| 0:45.2 | In other words, what is life really like in contemporary penal regimes? |
| 0:50.4 | Find out. My great friend and co-author Stankoyne like to quote these lines from Philip Larkin. Truly, though our element is time, |
| 1:06.0 | we are not suited to long perspectives opened at each instant of our lives, they link us to our losses. |
| 1:13.2 | Well, one such loss, as we both recognized in later life, |
| 1:16.0 | was our early involvement in prison reform. |
| 1:18.6 | You see, back in the 70s when the prison population |
| 1:20.5 | was roughly 40,000, together with other social scientists. |
| 1:24.0 | We'd written and spoken extensively about the need to find alternatives to this form of punishment, |
| 1:28.8 | alternatives which might produce lower rates of re-offending, as well as allowing those convicted of crime to stay in touch with their family, their community. |
| 1:37.0 | Well, the extent of our failure could hardly have been more evident. By the year 2000 the prison population |
| 1:43.9 | had grown to nearly 70,000. While today it stands at approximately 85,000 the |
| 1:49.1 | highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe. Why? Well, as Stan once Ruthly remarked a headline in a tabloid |
| 1:56.3 | newspaper can have more effect upon the direction of British penal policy than |
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