The Sun took a rare tour of a notorious British prison recently branded “inhumane” – but it wasn’t what you’d expect.
A state-of-the-art ‘prison of the future’ has been unexpectedly built inside Pentonville Prison in north London.
The prison’s pioneering ‘neurodiversity’ wing has been hailed by experts who say it offers hope of solving Britain’s prison crisis.
This week, our reporter went behind the scenes – and it couldn’t have been more unlike “The Ville’s” reputation for toughness.
Last year, inspectors branded Pentonville Category B prison “neither decent nor humane” for prisoners to live in.
Many prisoners share a 12-by-8-foot cell with a fellow inmate, living and eating inches from an open toilet.
The Victorian prison was found to be in ruins and infested with cockroaches and vermin.
Inspectors explained how “blockages in the pipes caused waste water to flow out of a manhole”.
The overflow caused “extremely unpleasant conditions in the care and separation unit and in an adjacent, recently renovated wing.”
On other occasions, burst pipes left leaks through the roof and prisoners were left without heat, electricity or running water.
Pentonville is designed to accommodate 500 men, but currently has around 1,200.
Shockingly, only about 100 of its inmates have been convicted of a criminal offence.
The rest are held on remand, imprisoned for up to 14 months before being tried – and many are eventually acquitted.
It is hard to imagine a less promising environment for troubled young men looking to turn their lives around.
But Pentonville staff have worked against all odds to create a more hopeful environment – including the new neurodiversity wing.
Pentonville is divided into the arrival cells, the general prisoner wing, the drug and alcohol wing and the gang wing.
The gang wing is in turn split to keep out rivals from the Tottenham and Hackney postcode wars.
When hostile inmates cross paths, disaster can ensue – as when 21-year-old Jamal Mahmoud was stabbed to death in G Wing in 2017.
But the ground floor of G Wing has now been taken over by the pioneering neurodiversity unit – which The Sun visited this week.
Most prisoners currently behind bars in the UK suffer from mental health issues, learning disabilities or various neurological needs such as autism, OCD or ADHD.
Many of them also suffer from harrowing childhood trauma, which is made even more difficult to cope with because of their unique needs.
A Pentonville source has told how many inmates at the prison were introduced to crack, heroin or alcohol as babies or toddlers.
Others grew up witnessing or experiencing horrific domestic violence, including sexual abuse.
And many of them have spent their lives in extreme poverty or in the infamous pipeline that leads from child care to prison.
Young people who grow up with these challenges often stop going to school in their early teens or are excluded after assaulting someone.
The result is that many of them end up with mental health problems or substance addictions, while lacking even basic literacy and numeracy skills.
INSIDE “THE CITY”
Any of us would face such a situation – but it is even more difficult for someone with neurodiverse needs.
Supervised by custody manager Neil Fraser, the NDU wing houses 43 prisoners with severe learning disabilities or mental health issues.
When the Sun visited the wing, it was association time – the time when prisoners can leave their cells to mingle.
Our reporter visited the wing’s sensory room, a transformed cell equipped with beanbags and soothing multi-colored screens.
Panicked, depressed or angry inmates can come here for about twenty minutes alone to calm down or even take a nap.
A prison guard who served on the wing recounted how violent troublemakers in the general wings became much milder in the NDU.
They told The Sun: “We get to know them all as individuals, beyond their names and their crimes.
“I know if a certain prisoner is particularly particular about how his spaghetti is cooked or whether it should be on a plate or a bowl.
“Or whether they are calmer with their cell door open or closed, and when.
“It dramatically improves their mood and makes them much less of a danger to others or to themselves.
“In the general wing there are hundreds of prisoners, many of whom have similar needs.
“I’m lucky if I know their names, what they came for and when their last visit was.
“The NDU wing is a model of how all prisons should be run in this country.”
Inmates in the wing are free to express themselves using safe materials.
A senior reporter showed The Sun a dozen model planes, trains and cars he had made from crushed crisp packets and milk cartons.
Another has wallpapered his room with his drawings of animals and landscapes, as well as a Chelsea pennant.
Officers were seen chatting and even patting inmates in a display of warmth unimaginable in some British prisons.
WINGS OF HOPE?
Pentonville has launched a series of other projects to try to make the rehabilitation of its cramped and crumbling wings possible.
Prison director Ricardo Lafuente-Dyer runs a workshop called Time4Change, where inmates can openly discuss their experiences.
The workshop explores why crime is such a powerful lure for troubled youth.
Prisoners also talk about issues such as poverty, domestic violence and racism – and how they can be part of a society they feel hates them.
A former Pentonville inmate has told how he entered prison in a dire mental state after his best friend was murdered.
He was imprisoned shortly before his daughter was born and saw her only three times in 18 months due to lockdown restrictions.
But after his release he now works as a prison healthcare advisor for the NHS – saying the workshop helped turn his life around.
Former prisoner Dan Brown has told The Sun how Pentonville chaplain Jonathan Aitken helped him get back on the straight and narrow.
Dan spent the better part of a decade in Pentonville for a series of drug-related offences.
He was eventually released, but he destroyed a pub during a police raid looking for alcohol.
But former cabinet minister and Belmarsh inmate Aitken has not given up on Dan, who is now a trader, husband and new dad.
The Sun reporter attended Dan’s wedding last year, which was officiated by Aitken.
Pentonville also teaches inmates skills such as carpentry and industrial and biological cleaning before matching them with sympathetic employers.
On Monday, Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor opened a new XO Bikes training workshop in Pentonville.
At the ceremony, Taylor presented three inmates with certificates attesting to their progress as trainee bicycle mechanics.
And from September, former Speaker of the House of Representatives John Bercow will be running a public speaking course at the prison.
PRISON OF THE FUTURE
But the reality is that Pentonville is an old, cramped and overcrowded prison, where most of the inmates are not rehabilitated.
The prison is also critically short of cash, with the NDU wing funded by a group of charities rather than the state.
The majority of prisoners would benefit greatly from life in the NDU wing – but there is only room for 43 out of more than a thousand.
Likewise, the prison is full of addictive substances outside the single wing reserved for drug-free inmates.
Many prisoners appear to detox on the inside, but relapse after release, quickly returning to prison, whether at Pentonville or elsewhere.
A drugs officer has told The Sun of his heartbreak at not knowing what happened to former prisoners in his care.
He has established relationships with many prisoners, but is forbidden from contacting them after they are released and he knows how bad the statistics are on recidivism.
The gangs target the concentrated drug market inside, allegedly using their members to smuggle contraband.
Perhaps the most difficult prisoners to rehabilitate are those in G Wing, whose inmates peer through the wire mesh above the NDU.
In recent years, the Hackney-Tottenham cocaine war has escalated into an ever-evolving maelstrom involving more than 50 postcode gangs.
G-Wing is a microcosm of the streets, where newcomers freely assume their gang affiliation to avoid harm.
The atmosphere in the wing is reputed to be paranoid, tense, lonely and prone to violent outbursts – there is no room for rehabilitation.
Gang members sometimes face retaliation if they interact with police and loss of face if they accept help for neurodiverse needs.
But a prison official said at least one former G-Wing inmate has found some peace after being transferred to the NDU.
Pentonville has long been known as one of Britain’s toughest prisons. Perhaps it could soon establish itself as the prison of the future.
