Holding the key, podcast episode 11: Junior Smart OBE, founder of SOS Project

Welcome to this next episode in the podcast series, Holding the Key: Conversations to Unlocking the Door to Doing Prison Differently. I’m delighted this morning to be joined by Junior Smart. I’m going to ask Junior if you might introduce yourself in a moment. My name is Bishop Rachel. I am the Anglican Bishop for Prisons in England and Wales as well as being the Bishop of Gloucester. Junior, would you just introduce yourself?Yeah. Hi, I’m Junior Smart. I’m a youth violence consultant, trainer, and someone with lived experience of the criminal justice system. I’m the founder of SOS Project, which began in prison in an actual prison cell and remarkably um grew into one of the country’s most recognised interventions tackling in serious violence.

Brilliant. I mean, so inspiring what you’re doing. And I’m sure people listening will be saying, tell us a bit more about how this came about. You’ve just talked about lived experience and this starting inside the prison cell. I mean, that sounds, you know, incredible. Could you just say a little bit more about your experience?

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I’d love other people to hear it. It’s crazy. I mean it’s it’s it’s really it blows my mind when you think about the journey. So I I was sent down in 2001 for a drugrelated offense and um it was like after trying to take my life a few times that I decided I’d try and save it and and save as many lives that I came across. That that journey started with the Samaritans. I actually became trained up as what they call a prison listener and um that that brought me face to face with the reality of people in custody. Um I dropped out of school without without any qualifications at all. Um but the first guy who called me out, I’ll never forget it. He said to me, um you know, you’re confidential. I’m like, yeah, absolutely. He said, well, I need your help. And I said, okay, how can I help you? And he pulled out a stack a stack of letters. I mean, huge. And he said, “I need you to read me these letters.” And um I read them to him and then I need you to help me write letters back the following night. And I was like, the thing about it was is I felt like, hang on a second, I left school without anything. I’ I’ve actually had something that I even with nothing, I’ve got something I can give back. The following night, I got called out again. He told people and I got called to another ring and I got and and then so I just got I got a real flavor for living life a different a different kind of way and that’s kind of where it started and and to be honest I’ve never really ever looked back over the last you know two years 20 years I’ve I’ve gone on to work with thousands and I mean thousands of young people I’ve trained frontline professionals I’ve contributed to national policy um you know and I’m currently completing the doctorate exploring the hidden harms of um exploitation on families but more than anything I I think I’m still passionate about helping young people and seeing the the human being behind the label and if anything I’m more passionate now than I was when I first started because even more needs to be done right now. Yeah.

Oh gosh. so much in there that we can pick up on. And I should have said it was a delight to be on a a panel with you last summer and that’s how we how we first met. Brilliant. Um I mean there’s so much in there that whole issue of your self-worth of realizing you had something to offer to other people. So, I’d love to pick up on that because that’s something I see again and again when I engage with people in prison, particularly young people, that sense of I’ve got nothing to give. I’ve been told all my life that I’m not worth anything. And then also that really poignant story of helping someone simply read their letters and be able to write. And we know that the the prevalence of illiteracy of those who end up in prison is really high. So let’s pick up first of all on that on let’s pick up on that issue of literacy first of all. I mean was it your experience that many people in prison just didn’t have those skills?

I was like everybody else before before I went into prison. I had no idea that that, you know, you hear you you hear about prison on on the news, you hear about prison in the media, and you you Yeah. I mean, it’s a dark, it’s a dank place, it’s a place full of trauma and fear, but you don’t really understand it. You just think it’s a it’s a bad place where they put bad people. And it isn’t until you’re actually on the other side that you realize that actually I mean I remember sitting in my cell looking out across the landing. And I literally was going, you know, cell number one like drug and alcohol issues. Cell number two, domestic violence. Cell number three, gambling and addiction. Cell number four. And it’s like literally we just put trauma next to trauma next to heartache next to like vulnerability. cage in one l after the other. And you know um but one of the one of the things that really got me was just like actually there’s this there really low levels of numeracy and literacy in in custody. We’re talking about typical age being like that. You know, peop people tend to drop out of education. Like it’s a it’s a real common coralence between school exclusions and and and criminal incarceration. And and um it was humbling for me. It really was. It really was humbling in terms of because I it was it was it was really it was really weird. You know, you ever gone to um um one of those fairground mirrors and you look into it and you see a different person being reflect? That’s what it was. So, I think up until my life in that point, I’ I’d be looking into the mirror and and maybe living out other people’s narratives, what other people thought I I should be and um what other people, you know, my mom was always like, you know, you can do anything you you can put your mind to, but I never really listened to that. I listened to my friends and I listened to the narratives that we heard, but like it was the suddenly and I honestly I’ve actually been asked this like one of the guys I went to see in in custody said to me really like was are you really saying it was the most unselfish time of your life? And actually, yeah, it absolutely was. My mom used to say, “If you want to find out how much you’re worth, take away everything every single thing valuable that you own and whatever’s left is is yours to keep.” And it was just that I had no material possessions. There was nothing. And all that was left was was me. But me was enough. Yeah.

And and actually, you know, for me sitting here as a Christian and I know we share that faith, there is that sense of recognizing that we’re created in the image of God and we are loved for who we are simply for who we are. And and and it’s something I say a lot to people in prison, which is, you know, I’m no more important than you are. Um we’re all equal and I long for you to become the person God’s created you to be. And I think that’s that, you know, where you just started off with those facts of those people in cell number one, two, three, four, where we are criminalizing poverty, vulnerability. It’s never to condone crime. I always these podcasts I don’t condone it but um you know we know as you’ve said that the drop out of schools the the people the children for whose school is not working um actually what what are all the things that are happening upstream that are yeah that are actually um behind people’s offending again again never to condone it but how we’re looking at those things but in all of that how are we giving people the message that they’re worth something. And I think your mom sounds like an amazing person, but actually that sense of you recognizing in prison that you could do something. You couldn’t change all the background of those people. You couldn’t undo all the things that they’ve experienced, but you could do something in that present moment that would help people and hopefully help them feel that they were valued as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, the reality is I think we’re we’re often we’re often harsh on the people um and soft on the causes of crime. That’s that’s the reality. We lock people up without ever asking how they they got there. I’m not saying accountability doesn’t matter. It does. Of course it does. Um, but if we don’t deal with the root causes, po poverty, trauma, neglect, we’re not really solving anything. We’re just we’re just repeating the cycle. And these are these are things that we know because, you know, prison has got a reaffending rate of almost 60%. Now, if there was a doctor or a hospital where over half the patients were coming back year after year with the same issue, you’d say, “No, get rid of that doctor. like close that hospital down. You know, that’s a really bad idea. They’re not helping anybody. You know, a 40% success rate is only effective in the most awful of circumstances. And so, yeah, we know that there has to be alternatives, but also it requires us as a society to be brave and radical about about what those alternatives is. And I’d say, you know, to any victim or survivor listening to this, I’d say, listen, like, you know, your pain is real and accountability absolutely matters. But, you know, but rehabilitation doesn’t cancel justice. I think it strengthens it because real justice means stopping more harm. It means, you know, helping people to change, not just punishing them and hoping for the best.

Yeah. And actually we end up on these podcasts having very similar conversations with a range of people because you know we all know that prison does not work. Yeah. And and although there is such a strong emphasis out there on punishment and you know like you I prefer the word accountability actually if that doesn’t change anything. So I want to hold holistically the victims and offenders together. And as I always quickly say, exactly as you’ve said, the majority of people in prison are victims as well as offenders. Yeah. Um but actually if we want it to be good for society all around then I like talking about how do we how do we work at transformed communities because that’s the only thing that actually is going to change the big picture. How do we change the narrative for victims of crime, offenders, families, friends, whole communities so that we don’t just end up repeating things again and again and again?

Yeah. And we know prison does not work. Yeah, I would as as we have this conversation there uh today has been the really um condemning report of Pentonville by Charles who who has been a previous guest on these podcasts. I think again flagging the issue is not just about overcrowding. If we just focus on overcrowding, we’re missing the point. is prisons not working and of course we are awaiting um what will come into the sentencing bill following the independent review by David and I’m hoping that we will be brave and courageous in that but I’d love to hear from your experience and particularly um all that you do now professionally if you could say this is what what needs to happen what would be some of the things you would be advocating for boy.

Okay. So, this is really this is a such a big question. Um, you know, so I sat with I sat with James Timson on the on Prison Reform Trust before he became the prison minister and um I take my hat off to his to-do list because his to-do list is is huge. But also um what he’s pushing for is some really radical is some really rad radical much needed changes. But the problem that we’ve got is I think there’s two issues. I think is society ready for those sort of radical changes. I think at the moment a lot of people are are coming at you know and you know coming at it from a fear factor. Also before I’d even go there, I’d say like is is is the system funded well enough to cope with the changes that are needed. So one of the first things they brought in was like this early release scheme which by right sounds like you know we need less prison. We need more you know there’s lots of people inside that could be much more like um supported and and and find their accountability within the community setting. But if you’re if you haven’t got the proper support networks in place, it can cause all sorts of problems. So, and I and I mean that because, you know, I’ve worked with prison officers. I’ve worked I’ve trained uh probation staff and and the problem is is that they’ve been stripped bare. You know, like they say, you know, it takes a village to raise a child. that that same village right now has been dismantled through the last 15 years of you know austerity measures. We’ve cut back so many services. We’ve lost so many trained staff. You know the prison if you look at the prison staff now they’re very young. They they’re kind of like they’ve gone with the best intentions but they’re inexperienced compared to what they’re dealing with. And so to ask what a change about the prison system is such a huge thing. I think it’s really important that we we have to be real. We’ve got to stop building more prisons and invest in community-led support. Um but most and you know the reality is most people don’t need more cages. They need connections. They need opportunities. They need a chance to to rebuild. I’d also um bring in lived experience into every level of justice and not just as tokenism I think but as part of the solution because you can’t fix a system that you don’t understand from the inside. And this is one of the problems that we’ve we’ve had the the reality is that the majority of the people that are making the decisions they’ve never really had to survive in the prison environment. So, it’s easy for them to say, “Do this, do that.” But until you’re actually in there and you know how you know how it’s it’s changing. One of the girls I support, she’s a um a mentor. She’s a a prison officer. She’s very very young, but she’s been assaulted assorted number of occasions. You know, we’ve we’ve had we’ve had communications. She’s had black eyes and all sorts. And I felt absolutely gutted because you don’t send a child into work to get hurt and assaulted and and harmed. And that’s me as an ex-offender saying it. I I just like what on earth is going on in there. Um but she talks to me about being understaffed. There’s not enough people to to to manage a situation. All of those things need to be in place.

Absolutely. Um because absolutely. I think you know you’ve you’ve well So many so much rich uh information in there and I’d absolutely agree and I think probably everyone on these podcasts said you know we have to get that infrastructure up. We do not the answer is not to build more prisons. If you go on building more prisons just so we can lock more people up we’ll get the same answer. Yeah. It’s not going to change things. But actually if we are going to uh quite rightly um try and respond to more people in the community and we’ve got to have the right infrastructure. can’t just say to a very depleted probation service and that’s under pressure um just deal with this because what will happen is someone is going to do something catastrophic and then everyone else will go see we you know you shouldn’t exactly that we need to lock people up that’s been a disaster whereas we know you know 80% of people in prison are in there for non-violent offenses absolutely we could be helping and supporting people in the community where they are connected.

I love that expression. I’m going to steal that one. Uh we need more connections, lots more.

Absolutely. I mean, that is so true because we know that relationship is so crucial to this. Um but actually that means we’ve got to be investing in the infrastructure of both probation, community support, and also in prisons. Um, exactly as you’ve said, you know, I say so often that our prison staff, not only have we got too few prison staff, but a lot of them are very young. Yeah. Have the wiser older people to support them through this.

In fact, again, another merciless uh plug for an earlier an earlier podcast with Mark, and Tom of the government the prison governor’s association who who raise all these points. So you’re absolutely right. We’ve got to get that infrastructure right and then we’ve got to be saying how can we have systems which work with people in the community where those connections can continue and if they’re not there can be made so people have proper good relationships. Um and I don’t actually even think it will need more money. It needs the money used differently.

Yeah. You know, I’ve got to say, you know, they did they um I one of the things that happened. So, you know, I got the job with St. Giles to do the work while I was a serving inmate. And I got that through being able to access I don’t access I don’t know if they still have it now, release on temporary license. I was able to come out and sit the interview. But you know, like some of the knee-jerk reactions I’ve heard over over these sort of thing, but actually rehabilitation needs to be one of the first things that they think about when someone enters custody because eventually they will come out. I think it’s only a handful of offenders in custody won’t come out. But actually planning, helping them prepare and get, you know, was so great. I was and I knew I was coming out to a job to a family and these things you know and to you know these things kind of like set the stage in a way that that that really kind of like gave me that kind of hope.

Yeah. and and um as I’ve said before on these podcasts, you know, when uh I visited the Netherlands with Pia, Prison Reform Trust and Howard League, one thing that we were really struck by is in the Netherlands from day one, if you go to prison, and lots of people don’t because they do some things differently, but if you go to prison from day one, you’re working on your reintegration plan, right? Actually the aim is you are going to be reintegrated into society and and how are we working on that? And again people have heard me say I hate the word rehabilitation because rehabilitation implies that you were here you fell off and we’re bringing you back up again. That’s true for some people. For lots of people they were never here in the first place. So um how do we work at transform transformation and transformed lives? Um and and you you raised there the you know the um the great news of having Lord Timson as prisons minister and of course I have the privilege of um being in the House of Lords and Oh do you can meet with him regularly and um you know we we share these sorts of conversations a lot and he does need all the support. Yeah. him. Um, and in all of that, you you touched on your work with young people. Um, you talked about your own experience as a young person and obviously you do amazing work now with young people, not least here in Gloucestershire. Um, just highlight for me some of your passions of what you’re trying to really communicate to young people.

Oh, wow. That’s a really good question. Um so for for us the work I do um and the work of my team it’s about providing consistent support uh to that young person to their family to the community for those that are caught up in in gangs youth violence and and and what they call negative cycles of of of crime. I think I think one of the the underlying message that we’re we’re getting across to the young people through the fact that the major, you know, the majority of my team are are ex offenders. They they’ve and I hate that word as well. You know, they’ve got lived experience, but I don’t know if the experience really does it justice either. Um but um the real underlying message to that young person is that anything’s possible and with the right support you can absolutely um you can absolutely change your life for the better and everybody has their everybody has their own trajectory and this is one of the things you know so I think society places this kind of thing of like you must do this you must do that but success for a young person for every single young person is completely And I think the thing that we get wrong is that we we tend like society tends to talk about about choices without talking about options. And they blame behavior, I think, without really looking at what shaped it. So what we’re able to do, you know, consistently because a lot of young people caught up in violence are just trying to survive survive circumstances that that they they we’d never want our own children to face. So I think regardless of what what we hear that these children are not broken like they’re reacting to broken systems and if we we don’t understand that we just keep punishing the systems um you know the the systems and the symptoms that we see. So what we do is we provide consistent support. We’re helping the young people reach their goals, realistic, objectionable goals for themselves. And and the best way I like to think of it, and all of my workers work different ways, but I consider myself to kind of like be a wingman to a young person. We’re running down the pitch together, and sometimes they’re going to be kicking the ball, but I’m going to be looking ahead to see what obstacles they may face. And sometimes they may pass the ball to me and I might run with the ball for a bit but then I will pass it back to them because it is their journey. Um but that that that work can encompass them getting employment, you know, accessing benefit, getting back into education, training, employment. It might include restoration to their victims. It might it may include things like helping them settle. It might mean moving them out of an area for their own safety. Um, and also it’s about helping them see see themselves as as as a as a success model. Breaking that narrative that we were talking about earlier where people are just consistently thinking that they’re not good enough and that they’re not able to achieve.

Absolutely. I want them to know that the sky’s is the limit. Oh, do you know and I love your metaphors. you have some great metaphors. Um, but I think that, yeah, that whole thing goes back to what you’re talking about trauma. Um, and looking upstream, but also there’s something in there of really listening to someone’s story, their unique story and and kind of joining in with it in a positive way. Um, you know, you talked about choices and options. I do think often we say, well, you can make different choices, but people don’t know what those are. We just assume that people have this whole range of choices and somehow they’ve chosen the wrong one. Whereas actually your work is helping people see what the options are. Yeah. What’s possible and valuing their story, listening to their trauma and saying there’s a new chapter of their story to be written. I often say you can’t you can’t rip out the earlier chapters of the story. They are part of your story but you can write new ones and yeah that’s exactly the work that you are involved in. Um, you know, we were talking earlier about how how the public uh see prison and one of the things that I’m trying to do at the moment which I think links in with the work you’re doing with young people is trying to listen to the voices of young people starting with the voice of young people in Gloucestershire to to ask young people what they think prison is for. Now some of those may have had connection with the criminal justice system, some won’t. Um, but actually asking them what they think the criminal justice system is about, what they would do differently because I really believe that if we can use the voices of young people, they will shape not only the present but also the future when decision making. Um, so watch this space uh for that. Um, you know, you your story is amazing. you know, you’ve talked about how you’ve you’ve looked at your options and made choices. Um, you know, you’re an OBE, which uh which I love that story you told about, wasn’t it? Trying to get some car insurance.

Yes. That was a bit that was that was a night. Yeah. People don’t understand. People don’t really get it. So they think, well, well, actually, when you you you go into prison, you do your time, and actually it’s all over. Actually, I’ve had to I’ve had to carry I’ve had to carry my criminal record around with me for 20 years. I’ve been released. I’ve been out of custody coming up to like I think about like almost like 18 years, I think this year is. And yeah, there’s things that I can’t I still can’t do because my offense will never become spent. Um, so like and and I have to do things legitimately. I can’t lie. So yeah, getting the car insured um was a nightmare because they were saying like, well, you know, we don’t insure you if your criminal conviction won’t ever become spent. And I was like, but yeah, I used to have car insurance with you. Like, so what’s changed? Like your criminal record, Mr. Smart. And I was like, you know, like please, like I, you know, I tell you what, I tried calling around loads of different places. And in the end, um I just thought I’ll get them on I’ll get this I’ll get them on the phone. And I said to her, listen, like please, please, like have a Google, see what you want. I’m telling you, my managers are not going to accept accept you on the thing. And I just thought, right, I don’t really want to have to do this, but I will pull back. And I said, um, you know, I’ve got an OBE. And she said, right, I’m going to I’m going to call my manager and we’ll call you back. And then, yeah, when they called when they called me back, they said, yeah, we’ll insure you’ll we’ll insure you. And um, isn’t that awful that actually we judge people on those sort of, you know, ranks? Going back to my thing. I said every one of us is equal. Doesn’t matter what our titles. No, I know. And it shouldn’t it really And yet and yet well, you know, good for you and I’m and I’m glad it worked. But um that’s a bit of indictment on our on our society, isn’t it? What I felt sorry for is that you know there’s loads of people that like my my mom like, God rest her soul, she’s passed a long time. She left this world without an OBE. Like what on earth will happen to like if that’s me with everything I’ve done, you know, with everything I’ve I’ve managed to do, like what on earth has somebody just coming out of custody, what are they going to face, you know? And I mentor people. One of the guys I mentor, he set up his own removal company and we had to we had to get him uh business insurance and again for him really, really hard and but you know, he was cited as unemployable. We got it in the end. But um like wow.

Yeah. And actually that whole view of if we really want things to be changed, if we want to transform lives and transform communities, what are we doing not just within the prison system but exactly you highlight when people come out? How are we really enabling people to make those good options? Because otherwise people are going to go back to the ones that they had before. So no, can I just we we must stop in a moment. We could talk forever, but I want to um briefly ask you where your faith has played a role in this.

Um I could tell you a really amazing story, Rachel. Um so I was I was in high down I was in highdown prison. My mom, like just to put you in the frame, my mom was like a devout Christian, like so we used to go to church every Sunday and um I got introduced to the church from a very young age, Jamaican family. There was a lady called and and like not many people know this story, so I’ll share it with you. There was this lady called Christine. She used to lead the the youth club and we used to go up we used to to do like trips away on the weekends and stuff like that. But I was a very hard to reach child. Like I’m I’m not going to pretend I’m very I was massively complex. But this lady called Christine, she knew me really really well. And I went I used to go to the church and then I became a cub and then I became a scout and then I really got caught into the stuff around the area and I stopped going. Her son used to go to the same school as me and I swear I used to bully him at some point. Anyway, I was at high down prison and I’ll never forget it. Um, so I was sitting in I honestly thought cuz I’d never been into prison before, I just need to I just need space. I need space away from the sounds and I need to just reconnect and and I and I thought like, you know, I just put my name down for anyone, but Roman, Catholic or Protestant, I don’t care. I just went in and I’m literally sitting in there and time must and I was like like you know I don’t mean this in a mad way but I was like please God like if you’re there like hear me like I really need some help. Anyway, I must have been there for ages. The organ player started playing and in walks this priest and I didn’t hear anything. It wasn’t like magic or anything like that. It was crazy. But then she looked at me and I looked at her and it was Christine. It was Christine. That one person. I’m not exactly I’m not even joking with you. It sounds absolutely mad, but I’m telling you it’s exactly how. And what she did is she ran because the church was empty. Like hardly anyone went into church. She stopped the she stopped the guy from playing and she came and sat down right next to me. I’d only been in prison a couple of days. I was on remand and she said, “What on earth are you doing here?” Yeah. From the one person who knew the real me. Like the one per to this day there aren’t people that know the real me of what I was like. And she said, “What are you doing in here?” And then I told her I told her the truth unbridled truth and um like she was she came to myself for like I think for the first four weeks and then she moved on and I haven’t seen her to this day ever since. But yeah, she was training to become a priest. Wow. She was training to become a priest. But what was really powerful is that it earthed me because there was no one else in this in this world that knew me like she did. Wow. You know, and I was, you know, and she showed me how to read the Bible properly, you know. Yeah. So, that was the start of my journey. That was the start of my journey really. And that’s that that story isn’t something that’s shared often, but um yeah, 100%. Absolutely. Like you couldn’t you can’t make it up. You really can’t. And the amount of times I’ve sat there and I’m like, “Well, what how on earth does that happen?” Yeah. No.

Well, I love that story. And um Yeah. And and you know, again, I hear amazing stories of what go on in chapels in prisons. And I love that you went there as a place of space and thinking. And a big shout out for all our chaplain and our prison vis. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, that’s fantastic. Gosh, what a great great story to draw to a close. I have one question that I ask every person who who um shares these podcasts, which is if you had a magic wand um and you could wave it and one thing that you would wish that you could bring about as a change and you’re not allowed to say I have a thousand more wishes. So, you have one wish. What would be the thing that you would want to see changed immediately?

I want to see a change in people’s hearts. I want people to see I want them I want them to see the person and not what the person’s done.

Yeah. Brilliant. And of course I would absolutely share that as a Christian. Um, actually we want every person to be seen for who they are and for their potential and and for me that goes for every person. It goes for those who’ve offended, those who are victims, for families, friends, everyone in every community. Um, that we might see one another more as people, which we’re not good at doing in our society, let alone in the criminal justice system. Um, Junior, you’re an absolute inspiration. Um, if I could clone you, I would. But thank you so much for your openness and for your honesty, just the inspiration. You are touching so many lives. You are transforming lives that um, you are probably not even aware of. And I suspect that one day on a podcast somewhere, there’ll be someone sharing a story and they won’t be talking about Christine, but they’ll be talking about Junior Smart. Um, thank you so much and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Yeah, likewise.