BEN'S PRISON BLOG - Lifer On The Loose

The first blog by a British prisoner. Variously described as being "obviously extremely intelligent" (Michael Gove), "the most interesting interview I have ever done" (Michael Portillo), and a "fully paid up member of the awkward squad" (Parole Board), I try to generate debate around the moral and political nexus that is imprisonment. Imprisoned between ages 14 to 47, released on Licence in August 2012

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Prison Education

I'm in the Guardian re prison education. My cat sneaked into the pic... http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/aug/04/michael-gove...

Friday, June 5, 2015

Bath Spa Uni

Talking to Criminology Students at Bath Spa University

http://youtu.be/rRlpzp8lVCM

Saturday, April 11, 2015

The Personal and The Political

If there is one unmissable difference between liberty and confinement, it is the distance between the individual and the State. Out in our...

Thursday, April 2, 2015

The O'Brien Show

The O’Brien Show On April 2 nd – today or yesterday, depending on my efficiency! – I appear on the new ITV O’Brien Show. And I found ...

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Media Tart Experience

The media tart experience Whenever I have a camera pointed at me, I am aware of all the times I used to watch ex-cons on the telly. Ofte...

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Cleopatra, Coming At Ya

The death of Henley [ http://prisonerben.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-very-fine-cat.html ] was a hard blow. While it appears I'm incapable of...

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Ben on Restorative Justice

Ben on Restorative Justice

Friday, July 11, 2014

So I have an Idea....

The Big Idea – Shouting Louder Nearly everything I have done in public over the past 5 years or so has had one conscious aim – to stimu...

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Ministerial Cancer

You know that an election is hoving near the horizon when the Parliamentary language in prison debates takes on a keen edge, each speaker wi...

Money in Prison

People - by which I meant, free people - were always bemused that prisoners need money. After all, isn't everything laid on by the State...

Monday, June 30, 2014

A Slice of Prison Culture

It's instinctive, if unfair. But I rarely wholly trust any man with a thin scar down their face. Being slashed, "striped", is ...

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Purpose of Prison

What is the point of prison? What is it we expect to happen via some mystical act of hiding someone away behind a 20 foot wall? I wish I c...

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About Me

prisonerben: United Kingdom; Previously known as "one of Britain's best known prisoners...he constantly questions authority and exposes the futility of the system" The Times, Ben was finally released from prison after 32 years in August 2012. Pleading guilty to the murder of a friend when he was 14 years old, he renounced violence and fought for the recognition of the inherent dignity of all human beings. As a result of speaking truth to power, he served far longer than the recommended 10 years, leading Education Secretary Michael Gove to argue that he had "been punished excessively for a crime committed as a child". One of the more intellectual of prisoner-campaigners, Ben chose to educate himself from schoolboy level to having both undergraduate and post graduate degrees. He is currently one of very few prisoners in Britain ever to attempt a Doctorate. Ben's speciality is non-violent action and the Human Needs Theory. Now on Life Licence, He is forging a career as a CJ policy consultant, writer and - as ever - campaigner.

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