Crime and punishment

Just a snippet on an edition of Today last spring taken from the programme that had just won an esteemed Sony Gold radio award was enough to create an impact. Ray and Violet Donovan were talking about the murder of their son, Chris, on a feature made by the Prison Radio Association. The programme was part of an innovative Restorative Justice scheme, using the power of listening to help victims, heal prisoners, and of taking that one further step by then broadcasting their conversations throughout the prison network. It was one of those moments when you just had to stop whatever you were doing. There was something in the voice, the stillness around that voice, the lingering echo of what was being said.

It made you want to hear more from Ray and Violet, and from the prisoners. What were their reactions? Is there a chance that such a conversation might really change a prisoner’s life? Originally, the award-winning programme could only be heard inside prison walls. But on Monday night a shortened version (produced by Marianne Garvey) was broadcast on Radio 4. The Victim’s Voice took us to a room inside HMP Brixton, where Ray and Violet and another victim of violent crime, Michelle, were gathered together with three prisoners, Carl, Liam and Adrian, who have all been convicted of serious assaults, for a conversation led by Professor Tanya Byron. She’s a psychologist with a particular interest in violent crime, sparked by her own experience as a teenager of discovering the battered body of her grandmother, victim of a random, pointless act of violence.