Page 33 - NewsandViews 2023 whole publication

3. Back Door Parole Margaret Whiting

Back Door Parole - a play performed by Journeymen Theatre, Dave and Lynn Morris at The Bournemouth
Meeting House on 30 June 2023

This was Lynn and Dave’s last performance before retiring, and what a way to finish their long career of
highlighting some of the injustices and wrongs in our British way of life! The play took the form of
conversations between a long-term prisoner and a Quaker Chaplain. It gave some insight into what
prison life is like from several points of view, but especially what it is like to be an older prisoner who may
be in prison for the rest of his life – this is a problem more likely to affect men than women prisoners.

One of the reasons for this situation is that more older men are being jailed for long sentences, and also
there is a backlog of prisoners who have been given Indeterminate Prison sentences. Although no IPPS
are being given out now, there are many prisoners who are still in jail because they have not been able to
go through the system that allows them to leave jail, having done many years over and above a more
‘normal’ sentence. The offences they originally committed may not have been very serious, but they
committed them twice, which was sufficient for them to be given an indeterminate sentence, meaning
they could not know when they could expect to leave prison.

There are not enough staff to take them through the process of first, going on a special course and then
proving to a parole board that they are fit to leave prison.

Not surprisingly, this situation causes great distress and to date, there have been over ninety suicides of
prisoners in this position.

These and other problems were highlighted in a very effective way in conversations by the actors.
Although some compassion is shown by some prison officers, they are often stressed themselves and
may be expected to deal with older men who are ill or becoming disabled, not what they expected when
they opted to be warders.

One gleam of hope for me was in the discussion following the play when Lynn said they had performed
Back Door Parole to a group of social work students some of whom would entering be the prison service
and may become governors at some point in the future.
Governors have considerable power in their ‘own’ prisons and
could bring about change for the better. Let’s hope so!

We were all moved by what we had watched and
conversation flowed over the tea tables afterwards. We were
privileged to see this last performance by the Journeyman
Theatre – may their legacy be kept alive in the scripts they are
hoping to publish.

Back door parolePrison slang: To die in prison
'He got away by back door parole''
Dave and Lynne Morris have now retired. Eds.

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