In an exclusive Mail podcast, hosts of ‘The Trial’, Caroline Cheetham and Liz Hull discuss their visit to HMP Grendon, a prison with a revolutionary approach to inmate rehabilitation.
Opened in 1962, Grendon in Buckinghamshire began as an experimental psychiatric prison specialising in detaining offenders with antisocial personality disorders.
It has since evolved into a therapeutic community, where prisoners from across the UK serving long sentences can apply to access its unique treatment regime.
The prison forces its inmates, through group therapy and role play, to engage with victims and the human impacts of their crimes.
Grendon is a category B prison, meaning it houses exclusivley men who have committed serious crimes such as murder and rape.
This is no easy ride through their sentence. Award-winning Daily Mail journalist Caroline Cheetham told co-host, Liz Hull, about her experiences talking with one prisoner who had begged to leave Grendon.
Opened in 1962, HM Grendon began as an experimental psychiatric prison specialising in detaining offenders with antisocial personality disorders
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‘We met one guy over lunch who’d been in the prison service since he was 10’, Cheetham remembered.
‘He was in his sixties and had been in and out of the system for various offenses. He came to Grendon five years earlier.
‘When he first arrived, he told me he had begged to go back to a normal prison. He said he couldn’t look himself in the mirror – he just couldn’t cope with it.’
The goal of the therapy is to treat the root causes of criminality, such as childhood trauma, to better set inmates up for life on the outside.
Prisoners must want to go to Grendon: they apply themselves and have to meet a set of strict criteria to be housed there.
Grendon boasts a lower recommittal rate than traditional prisons, with inmates being statistically less likely to re-offend after a short eighteen-month say.
Hull summarised how prisoners had described the therapy and its effects to her.
‘They must humanise their victims. The therapy involves role play with each other, where prisoners pretend as if they’re talking to their victims.
Cheetham and Hull described their time at HM Grendon as ‘mind-blowing.’ Listen to the full episode on the Mail’s new podcast platform, The Crime Desk by clicking here.
Prisoners must want to go to HM Grendon: they apply themselves and have to meet a set of strict criteria to be housed there
‘They must use their victim’s name. One young lad told me that he had always seen his victim as worthless before the treatment.
‘He had just seen him as a drunk – he’d murdered this guy, it was really serious. The therapy forced him to realise this man was a human being, with a family who loved him.
‘He then was finally able to feel shame for what he had done.’
Cheetham and Hull described their time at Grendon as ‘mind-blowing’. As court reporters, they said the experience had shown them the importance of seeing offenders as more than ‘monsters in the dock’.
Their podcast, ‘The Trial’, has seen them report on some of the most high-profile criminal cases of recent years, including the trials of Lucy Letby, Constance Marten and Mark Gordon.
‘We see trials in progress. We follow them in detail every single day of a case and we know that process is quite dehumanising’, Cheetham said.
Hull concurred: ‘Obviously these people need to be punished, but they are essentially human beings just like everyone else. That’s what made this experience so fascinating.’
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