Captive Radio in Rugby

Warwickshire's newest radio station is in Rye Hill Prison, near Rugby. At a certain point, with such a high per capita prison population, one of the highest in Europe along with Russia, England needs to face up to preparing inmates for life after release and drastically scaling down our prison population.

Prison director Alan Bramley said: "This is a wonderful learning project, for students of media and journalism in the prison, who can work alongside our writer in residence." He added: "We want to rehabilitate offenders, give a sense of social responsibility and help them prepare to reintegrate into mainstream society on release.

I've followed the work of prison radio as a way of training inmates for life after release at HMP Wandsworth. At "Radio Wanno," inmates are paired with a mentor on release from prison.

This person is there to provide general support and advice in the crucial first 6 months/year of release. Sponsors recruited from young broadcast journalists and postgraduate journalism students help the prisoners working on Radio Wanno by providing them with outside material to make their programmes throughout their BTEC qualification, a nationally recognised award in broadcasting. As part of their course and the running of the station, prisoners make packages and documentaries, not only about aspects of prison life, but about issues outside prison which affect their lives and their families. Sponsors gain useful contacts and work experience that open doors to interesting programming opportunities and they also gain valuable work experience for their CVs.