Alex South’s harrowing account of violence in prisons (Death on the inside: as a prison officer, I saw how the system perpetuates violence, 13 January) deserves more than our sympathy – it demands we recognise these murders and assaults not as symptoms of a broken system, but as a foghorn blaring warnings about fundamental failures.
I work in prisoner rehabilitation. I see what South describes from the other side: men whose “scaffolding” is indeed flimsy, who have accumulated trauma before and during incarceration. But I also see what happens when that changes. Our service users work in cafes, bakeries and bike shops, not because we believe in the redemptive power of bread or bicycles, but because meaningful work and purposeful activity are the foundations of desistance.
