Here is the documentary I made with Carl Cattermole and National Prison Radio. With huge thanks to Whicker’s World Foundation for funding and support.
It’s really exciting to have this project played within the prison system on the incredible radio station that is NPR, and now on the outside. So please pop on your headphones when you listen to this, as I hope this piece can somehow bridge a gap between our justice system and the general public.
Again, huge thanks to everyone who helped in this: contributors, colleagues, friends and family.
Here’s the link, enjoy. (Official programme blurb and pictures below)
Sounds Inside is a unique opportunity to spend 24 hours behind bars, through the power of sound.
Carl Cattermole, who himself spent time behind bars, returns to HMP Brixton in south London for 24 hours, equipped with a load of microphones to record the sounds of jail for a day and a night.
Being imprisoned for the first time, many people are surprised to discover that they are not only cut off from the day-to-day business of the outside world, but also transported to an entirely alien world of sound.
People talk of the intensity of the sound of prison. “The sound from all the other cells is transparent. When the lights are switched off, everyone barks and howls like animals, every night. You try sleeping in that. It’s loud in prison.”
We trace the rhythm of a day and a night in prison, and we meet some of the prisoners, including the guy who likes to crush biscuits up on the carpet and then hoover up the crumbs, just to hear the sound.
The documentary was originally broadcast on National Prison Radio in early 2018.
It was produced by Tom Glasser, and funding for this programme was gratefully received from the Whicker’s World Foundation.
Thomas Glasser 