"I could sit and talk football with anybody every day of the week and I believe it would be quite an informed discussion. "Sitting with politicians, it's probably not my strongest skillset, but where I see the value for me is prison reform. "I've got lived, real-life experience of spending time in prison, coming out, being rehabilitated. And I feel I've got quite an educated opinion on the prison system from being in it and living in it."
Inmates at an infamous high-security military prison in Chile, which houses the perpetrators of dictatorship-era human rights crimes, are set to lose their privileged conditions under plans to incorporate the prison into the public prison network. President Gabriel Boric announced on Monday that Punta Peuco is being transformed into a regular prison to help deal with overcrowding in the penitentiary system.
Thomas White, who is serving an abolished indefinite jail term described by the United Nations as psychological torture, developed paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis in prison as he lost hope of being freed from his Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence. Last year, The Independent revealed how he had set himself on fire in his cell as this newspaper backed his family in their six-year battle for him to be transferred for inpatient mental health treatment.
When I got on that roof, I was absolutely desperate, thinking I was going to die, he said. I'd been asking for help for days. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone, I just needed to escape and feel safe in a system that makes that almost impossible. That moment was the only way I felt I could survive.
I think that frankly - I mean - what purpose do they serve? I think that we have to ask ourselves that. Many defend the carceral state for their own feelings, not its reality.
A cockroach-infested jail which illegally detained prisoners for longer than their release date has been put into special measures by a watchdog, exposing critical failures in the prison system.
Tracking devices inserted under offenders' skin, robots assigned to contain prisoners, and driverless vehicles were proposed to ministers by tech companies to address the UK's justice crisis.
"While much of our work addresses concerns around service delivery, many of the issues that we encounter go far beyond mere inefficiencies. They raise profound questions about fundamental human rights."
The number of prison staff being investigated for sexual assault or harassment has surged almost 400 per cent over recent years, revealing a serious issue within the prison system.
After one of her first visits to L.A. County's juvenile hall in Sylmar, Efty Sharony filed a report that said she witnessed conditions worse than anything she'd seen in "over 20 years of experience visiting every level of carceral facility in California."
The incident at HMP Belmarsh highlights the ongoing debate about prison conditions and security, particularly regarding inmates deemed extremely dangerous, like Axel Rudakubana.
"How do we reduce re-offending? How do we deal with people's drug addiction, mental health problems, the fact that people leave prison they don't know where to live, people don't have a job?"