What is it like to be a woman in prison?

from Woman's Hour · host BBC Radio 4

The Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood believes “prison isn’t working” for women and wants to reduce the number of female prisoners. So what has gone wrong? Nuala McGovern speaks to Scarlett Roberts who is a former prisoner and is now a Churchill Fellow and to former prisoner Jules Rowan, now a personal trainer, who co-hosts the Life After Prison podcast. They are joined by former prisoner officer and former Head of Security and Operations at HMP Wormwood Scrubs Vanessa Frake-Harris, and by prison Intelligence Analyst and author of Five by Five, Claire Wilson. And Lucy Russell, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the charity Women in Prison, describes the challenges faced by women in prison today.What can be done to improve the prison system for women? Nuala speaks to justice system reformer Lady Edwina Grosvenor about her pioneering project Hope Street in Southampton, which aims to keep women in criminal justice system out of jail and with their children and to Alex Davies Jones MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice about the Government's plans to tackle the issue of women's prisons.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Laura Northedge