Optimistic For Change

We've featured the Prison Reform Trust quite a bit recently and their brilliant work in holding the dreadful former Justice Secretary Dominic Raab to account, but I hadn't realised they have a new Director. I think the following from InsideTime indicates that the good work is likely to continue and it's particularly interesting to hear the reasoning given for 'jumping ship' from a dream HMPPS post - if only Probation could break free.....   

‘Holder of hope’!

New Director of PRT puts optimism and hope at the centre of her new role – ‘lived experience’ invaluable

In 2017, HMP Liverpool was the subject of one of the most critical inspection reports in years by the HM Inspectorate of Prisons, which found there was an “abject failure” to provide suitable conditions. Described as one of the worst prisons in Europe, the prison, better known as Walton, was found to be ridden with litter, dirt, rats and cockroaches – and had huge problems with violence and drugs. Conditions were so poor, foreign judges feared it would be inhumane to send suspects back to the UK if there was a risk they would be held at HMP Liverpool.

Pia Sinha came to prominence as the troubleshooter who, along with a dedicated team, turned the prison around within three years to such an extent that the then Prisons Inspector Peter Clarke said the “squalor and filth” had gone and there was now a “culture of care” with a “real change in the quality of leadership”. She spent twenty-three years in the prison service before ‘jumping ship’ and joining one of the most prominent prison reform organisations as Director of the Prison Reform Trust. Describing her new role as, “Truly an honour and a privilege” Pia Sinha said, “Prison reform is in my DNA.”

Shock

Sinha had actually been the deputy governor of HMP Liverpool four years earlier. She says that then it was, “Alright, as far as local Victorian prisons go. There was a good governor and the two of us were able to do some good things and we’d had a fairly decent inspection. But to go back a mere four years later and to see how badly it had deteriorated was an absolute shock. I remember on my first day I thought … I’m just going to grip the rail and go around and have a look – what I saw actually brought me to tears. But I suppose when you are trying to fix places that are terrible you have to have some kind of emotional connection with them and I felt really emotionally connected with that prison. The odd thing was that once I started to make things better, it wasn’t that hard. It was bloody hard work but it wasn’t that hard because everyone wanted to do the same.”

Name clearing

How did she motivate her team? “What I did early on was have a full and frank conversation with the team that existed and to say look, this is going to be bloody hard work you know. So for the people that were already there, who had sort of presided over its decline – they were people who were really tired, fed up, negative – and I asked them, ‘Do you have the heart for this?’ Some of them said, ‘You know what, no, I don’t.’ The people that weren’t up for it, for legitimate reasons, we found them something else to do. And the ones that sat opposite me, saying, ‘Pia, I want to be part of this – I want to clear my name and make it better’, they worked so hard. Then I got some new people in – that combination was just magical.”

Ship jumping

Sinha worked for the prison service for twenty-three years, joining as a higher psychologist at HMP/YOI Holloway in 1999 – then worked as a senior psychologist at Wandsworth before taking up the post of head of safer prisons. Following that, she became head of reducing re-offending at Wormwood Scrubs. She then took up her first deputy governor role at Send, and subsequently at Downview and Liverpool. She took up her last post as Director of Women in November 2021, taking responsibility for the 10 public sector women’s prisons and oversight of the two private prisons. So why did she jump ship?

“I’ve done quite a lot of reflecting. I’d have to take it back to how the story unfolded. Eighteen months ago, when I got the role of Director of Women in prison post, I felt delighted; I felt it was my dream job. It was a rare privilege. But having gone on to become director of women I found that as a senior civil servant I was getting further and further removed from the front line and it felt that the proportion of the work I was doing was much more about managing upwards and trying to influence in a really awkward complicated non-direct way. And I was feeling frustrations. I also felt that the directorate was not adequately resourced for the complexity of the job. I think that within the women’s directorate there is so much risk, especially around the high levels of self-harm, suicide, pregnant women coming in, women with mental health issues. If things went wrong, and they did, they got immediately escalated to the press, immediately escalated to ministers – and it just felt like a really high risk part of the system. I didn’t think I could change things at the pace I wanted to.”

Excellent team

Does she think she can change things now heading up the PRT? “Well, I feel more optimistic about change. That wasn’t what led me to think ‘I’ll apply for this job’. I think part of this job, as a leader, is to maintain optimism about change and hope – and be the holder of hope.” So how does she plan to influence those in power to make the necessary changes? “I think that’s just one part of what PRT does,” she says, “Its one part of what they do very well. And I think you have to give Peter (Peter Dawson, former Director who retired), enormous credit for the steadfast way he did this. PRT’s reputation is the money in the bank. This reputation allows for us to have a really strong lobbying voice in the system. I think that work should and has to continue. We have excellent people in the team who really know their stuff. But something I’m intrigued about is to ask how do we harvest all of this amazing information that we are getting when we have got a very strong network of lived experience voice? It’s better than I’ve ever known it to be. We also have incredible research going on. I want to use the intel and the information that we are getting and directly be able to look at how we can generalise all of that towards the front line.”

Reacting to the resignation of former Justice Secretary Dominic Raab over bullying claims Sinha said: “The vital and complex work of the Ministry of Justice has been undermined by Dominic Raab’s reckless meddling and his inability to interact professionally with his senior officials. A new Justice Secretary is an opportunity for a reset on Dominic Raab’s damaging changes to the parole system. Changes to open conditions transfers have undermined the progression of prisoners and effective arrangements for public protection. A single view procedure forbidding state appointed officials – including forensic psychologists and prison and probation staff – from making recommendations for release or transfer to the Parole Board have been ruled unlawful by the High Court. The Victims and Prisoners Bill currently before Parliament undermines the independence and expertise of the Parole Board and raises wider constitutional concerns regarding judicial independence and U.K. compliance with human rights obligations. His successor should urgently review the Bill and Raab’s other changes to the parole system as a result and adopt a more measured approach.”

Erwin James