This year's lectures
Culture at a crossroads?
20 September
10am
Registration 9.15am
For some years the prison service has been working on its culture – a positive culture for staff, and a rehabilitative culture for those in prison.
This day of lectures is a chance to ask how this quest is progressing, in the face of the challenges that are all around.
Managing the risks of COVID-19 has been a massive challenge, that demanded centralised guidance and control. As we transition back to the ‘new normal’, how will we balance control, accountability and autonomy, for prison governors, prison staff and prisoners themselves?
Organisations with a healthy culture encourage innovation and accept that at times things may go wrong. Often it seems that politically, avoiding risks and averting criticism are the priority. What progress in the quest for a learning culture?
The culture of an organisation relies heavily on good leadership, excellent communications of its aims and a shared understanding of those aims. How far is visionary and brave leadership being cultivated at all levels of the service?
Is it still possible to achieve a rehabilitative culture, or is it just another slogan on the shelf?
About The Perrie Lectures
The Perrie Lectures is an annual event which has the purpose of stimulating dialogue between criminal justice organisations, the voluntary sector and all those with an academic, legal or practical interest in offenders and their families.
The Perrie Lectures are named in honour of Bill Perrie, who retired from the Prison Service in 1978. He worked as a prison governor for 32 years, latterly at HMPs Hull, Long Lartin, and Winson Green, Birmingham. A sound practitioner, Bill contributed much to the development of hostels, working out schemes, and regimes for long term prisoners. Bill attended the lectures every year until his death in 1997.
Since 1995, the Perrie Award has been presented annually during the day of the lectures. It has been given by the Perrie Lectures Committee to the person who has done most to promote an understanding of the work of the Prison Service, and pushed forward the development of penal policy.
Through the Perrie Lectures and the Perrie Award, it is hoped that the care of offenders can be improved, and penal policy, in its broadest sense, advanced.
The text of the Perrie Lectures is produced in full as a special edition of the Prison Service Journal.
The Perrie Lectures Committee is independent and non-profit making and is currently made up of the following members:
The Committee 2022
Rachel Bell, Chair - Women’s Team, HMPPS Women’s Directorate
Alun Jones
HMPPS Communicatons
Sarah Matheve
Koestler Trust
Mike Kirby
Independent
Kimmett Edgar
Prison Reform Trust
Pauline Austin
New Bridge Foundation
Ian Dixon
Independent
Anita Dockley
Howard League
Carlene Dixon
Women’s Team,
HMPPS Women’s Directorate
Martin Kettle
HM Inspectorate of Prisons
Sarah Tiffin
Arden University
Mary Haley
HMP Grendon
Judith Feline
Independent
Lesley Dixon
Independent
Kam Sarai
HMPPS - HMP Dovegate
Colin Archer
Independent
Kate Gooch
University of Bath
Rosie Meek
Royal Holloway, University of London
The Speakers
Proud to bring thought provoking speakers from across the country
The lectures will be chaired by Phil Maguire OBE (Chief Executive, Prison Radio Association)
Speakers include:
Sonia Brooks - Governor, HMP Brixton
Shadd Maruna - Professor, Queen’s University Belfast
Nina Champion and Nola Sterling
Director, and Project Manager, Criminal Justice Alliance
Charlie Taylor - Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons
Gill Attrill - Deputy Director: Insights Group / Prison Reform, HMPPS
