Chances for prisoners

SIR – Will Heaven’s piece about the rehabilitation of prisoners (Comment, May 25) was timely and true.

Two years ago, after a visit to Wolow maximum-security prison near Wroclaw in Poland, I started a contest for inmates to write a 1,000-word short story. It gave them an opportunity to express their feelings and their frustrations to an audience outside the prison walls. They could feel that they were being listened to, and I think that this helped a great deal with their rehabilitation.

The Polish prison service supported me, and last year the Graham Masterton Written In Prison Award received 130 entries from every penal institution in Poland.

However, when I visited a prison in Yorkshire last year and suggested a similar contest there seemed to be very little enthusiasm, either from the inmates or the staff.

Our attitude to rehabilitation has to change dramatically. Graham Masterton

Tadworth, Surrey