Conference Report 2019

We were happy to once more welcome many HW friends, speakers and visitors to our London conference on Saturday 5th October. Our first speaker was Nathan Roberts, co-founder of A Band of Brothers (ABOB).

This charitable organisation was founded ten years ago. Nathan described their work with young men (aged 18-25) who had become involved in the criminal system. A Band of Brothers provides support for them, enabling them to make the transition to an adulthood free of crime and to find the “best possible version” of themselves. This transformation is achieved by pairing each young man with an adult mentor to work together for a series of weekly meetings over twelve weeks before passing through a Rites of Passage weekend. There are several communities around the country, including Brighton, Cornwall and Oxford and it is hoped that more will evolve to expand this valuable work.

Our next speaker was Roy Hanley from the National Association of Official Prison Visitors. Roy described the state of the penal system in England and Wales, clarifying the types and categories of prison, as well as providing information on prisoner demography. Of the current total population, just 4.6% are female, 11% are foreign nationals, around 10% are serving life sentences, with 48% serving a sentence of over four years.

He said that the Association is a non-faith-based charity that exists to promote, implement and maintain the Official Prison Visiting scheme. He clarified in detail the support given to individual inmates and how the association is organised, with representatives in all UK prisons.

Mary Vaughan was the third speaker of the morning session. She gave an illustrated and colourful talk on Death Row Art, describing the various strategies used by prisoners to produce brushes and paints. A wide range of styles produced from the various US Death Rows was illustrated with a slide presentation, each one accompanied by the prisoner's own individual words explaining the importance of their art to them.

After State Groups and the lunch break, Caroline Dipple read a letter of apology from Clive Stafford Smith who had originally been booked to speak in the afternoon. Clive had been working in Guantanamo Bay on behalf of Reprieve and security there had prevented his intended flight leaving on time for him to be with us.

We then welcomed as afternoon speaker 'our' Pablo Stewart, forensic psychiatrist from America, who is a regular visitor to our conferences. Pablo clarified his theory that the persistence of capital punishment in the US is based on politics. He listed the variety of crimes for which a death sentence is possible and continued with a detailed description of the complicated system of death penalty trials and defence appeals through the courts which might precede an eventual execution.

Pablo went on to explain the recent decision, approved by the President, to execute five inmates in the Federal system over the Christmas/New Year period. These would be the first Federal executions to take place since 2003 and the intention is to use a single drug, Pentobarbital. Pablo pointed out that mitigating circumstances were being totally ignored and he suspects that there will be wide press coverage attempting justification for the government’s action. In Pablo’s opinion, the motivation for these executions is purely political at this stage. The only positive note was the recent news that one of the five now had his date stayed owing to his Navajo Indian nationality and the possibility of racial prejudice in his original trial.

Pablo concluded with words from his colleague, Robin Meyer, who described our friendships and letter-writing as “literally life-saving”.

The rest of the day followed the conventional pattern - tea break, raffle and general questions, concluding with lighting of candles, one for prisoners who have been executed and one for the victims of crime who we also always remember. A two-minute silent reflection followed.

The day concluded with words from our founder, Sue Fenwick, who warmly thanked all our speakers in addition to Sonya Woodsend, who had again planned and organised an excellent conference. She briefly outlined the activities of the organisation during the past year, speaking on the excellent intake of new members and the resultant reduction in our penfriend waiting lists. Sue thanked all HW office holders, outlining the teamwork and commitment that reflect the continued, encouraging growth of the organisation and last, but definitely not least, a warm thank you was expressed to our members for their continued support, both to Human Writes and to their US penfriends.

Report by Sheila Michell