Criminal: How our Prisons Are Failing Us All; Angela Kirwin

"I was what the older generation of prison officers called a 'care bear'. It was my job to work with the prisoners most in danger of falling through the cracks and, if not deliver them safely to the community upon release, fully rehabilitated, then at least stop them from killing themselves or anyone else..."

Come with Angela Kirwin for a journey inside prison like no other. For over a decade she was a social care worker in some of Britain's most notorious prisons.

Now she wants to tell the stories of the men she met, because she believes that prison is failing everyone, damaging the most vulnerable people in our societies, creating habitual criminals, leaving us all less safe and contributing to a society that is immeasurably less humane. Every year, we spend billions of pounds on a system that fundamentally doesn't work.

Rather than a separate world full of people that aren't like us, prison is where the most damaged and vulnerable people in our society end up and we all need to urgently care about that, so we can change it. Because the state of our prisons is criminal.

May 26, 2022

A working class kid from Manchester. One of her earliest childhood memories is having a placard balanced on her lap, being wheeled along in her pushchair, as her mum protested the closure of the local children’s hospital. Along with her mum and sister, she became a teenage carer for her grandmother who suffered with dementia. It was this experience that propelled her, aged 16, into her first social care job.

With over 10 years experience in the social care sector, Angela specialised in working in dual diagnosis, homelessness, mental health and substance misuse. She has guest lectured at the University of Bristol on these topics.

In 2015, she received a Churchill Fellowship and travelled to the USA and Norway to research innovative approaches to crime and punishment.

Combining her BA(hons) in Politics & Modern History and an MSc in Social Work with her work experience, Angela now writes about social issues, with a particular interest in prison reform, the criminal justice system, mental health, ADHD and neurodiversity.

Her debut non-fiction, Criminal - How Our Prisons Are Failing Us All, will be released in paperback on 25th May 2023. She is represented by Matilda Forbes-Watson at WME.