Lived Experience - please don't ruin it

All too often buzz words or phrases come along to offer hope and belief that a miraculous new theory or idea will solve a problem. Organisations then feel obliged to fit that theory/idea into their strategy. "Lived Experience" is one of those buzz phrases - but what is it? I am classed as someone with lived experience. I run a company which is described as a lived experience organisation. Only in recent times have I thought about those two words. Here, I'll try to explain what it means to me, to Release Mates Charity and the worries I have about its future.

To me, it is logical that every living being has lived experience. It is experience of life. I then try to break it down a little into different types of lived experience. There are negative and positive lived experiences. To me, a negative experience makes me unhappy, it causes me problems, it affects how I feel and think, in an adverse way. Positive lived experiences are the opposite of this - they make me happy, open up opportunities and make me feel good. We all have these experiences. However, both positive and negative lived experiences can be used in a positive way to help others. They can be used to either advise someone how to do something correctly or how not to do something incorrectly. We all learn from people who have lived experience from a very early age. I was taught to ride a bike by someone who learned to ride a bike. I was taught not to put my hand in fire because someone once put their hand in a fire and didn't like the consequences, so their lived experience has been passed down.

In recent times, this lived experience concept has made its way through to rehabilitation from addiction and offending. My own belief, albeit controversial, is that a number of well renumerated people with admirable qualifications in addiction, criminology etc passed down their wisdom and eventually authorities realised it isn't working. So now, in the austere times we live in, it makes sense to explore cheaper alternatives. The earliest and most pertinent example of lived experience within addiction that I have been able to find is in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous: "The therapeutic value of one alcoholic helping another is without parallel". AA's success is evident as it has passed the test of time. Irrespective of whatever figures are banded around highlighting success or failure rates, millions of people still gather in rooms today to help one another overcome alcoholism - in the same way they did back in the 1930s when AA was first formed. The model has been adapted for Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, and more.

When I started Release Mates, I thought long and hard about this indescribable bond between people who share lived experiences. Indeed, it is this bond that was at the core of the idea for beginning the project. Whilst decorating an outbuilding of Preston prison after my release, lads who were being discharged came into the building looking for support. Without me saying a word, or knowing them from my time in prison, they knew that I had done time inside. Given that I was not serving a sentence, they must have guessed that I was doing ok now. That, and the fact that I was not high as a kite on drugs or smelling like a brewery. There were many other professional services in that building offering support, but they wanted to speak to me, the volunteer painter. They were interested in finding real solutions to the problems they faced on release, whether it be accommodation, finding the probation office, or getting food and clothes to survive. The person they trusted to advise them was me because in their eyes, I had overcome the same problems they faced.

But, there is more to it than this. There exists an unwritten and unspoken code between prison leavers. I may be wrong, but I think this derives from us knowing that each person who has been in prison is worth so much more than services, authorities, courts, probation, and the media give us credit for. Underpinning this mutual respect is relatability - prison leavers know how each other prison leaver feels because at some point they've been on the same leg of the journey. It's a coming together of underdogs who at some point in their lives have been given up on by society. And crucially, each prison leaver who has successfully navigated away from the revolving door has a yearning for other prison leavers to do the same - because we know just how bad prisons in England and Wales really are. When we hear of 23 hours a day in a cell on the news, we feel it. When we hear of staff shortages, we remember having to wait 2 days for toilet roll because there weren't enough screws to go get some. Moreover, we know just how amazing freedom can be.

I am immensely proud that this lived experience, relatability, or whatever we call it, is the thread that holds Release Mates together. All of our team are prison leavers. What we do really is very simple, but it works. I believe that the reason it works is because of this "lived experience". As our journey progresses I become more and more convinced that organisations like us, and the other fantastic lived experience groups around the country, are part of the solution to the wholly desperate state of our criminal justice system.

It is not an exaggeration to say that lived experience is priceless - you simply can't buy it. There are not many who get out of prison and rehabilitate, there are fewer still who get out of prison and would even consider a role within the criminal justice system. Recently HMPPS have tried to embrace lived experience. There are now roles within HMPPS where experience of being on probation or in prison is a requirement. This is massively encouraging and possibly a step in the right direction. However, it is at this point where my greatest fears arise. Lived experience per se is fragile. Going back to the indescribable bond between prison leavers - nobody understands it, so it should be nurtured and cultivated gently. It is proven to be a benefit so why can it not just be left to do good things? Alcoholics Anonymous has largely been left alone for almost a century and still works, so what's the difference with lived experience in the criminal justice system?

The difference really is quite simple - AA has no bosses, no spreadsheet bashers who spend their lives analysing data, no rulers, and no governors. AA's 2nd tradition has held firm for 9 decades - "Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern" There can't be governors in lived experience organisations. There can't be dictators. Everyone, irrespective of how many years they've been sober, or how many years they've been out of prison, must be equal. So, when HMPPS eventually got round to using lived experience to positive effect, it was absolutely imperative that they treated it with utmost respect, rather than "just a bunch of cons, what do they know?". The fragile, personal, and vulnerable nature of lived experience had to be protected from outside interference. And for me, the biggest change had to come within the culture of HMPPS. Humility is needed - there needs to be an acceptance that prison leavers can help other prison leavers in a way no probation officer, screw, governor or police officer can. If the criminal justice system is inviting lived experience into its strategy, it needs to do so with grace. Lived experience does not fit into the matrixes, frameworks, protocols and pathways which the criminal justice system thrives off. It is spontaneous human interaction, it can't be planned or rehearsed.

Is the criminal justice system prepared for this? I have grave doubts. Too much money has been wasted on fruitless training, too many egos will be bruised and dented. I know this because I have seen it first hand on the Release Mates journey. A while ago, I was encouraged to apply for a role in one of the latest HMPPS schemes seen to be encouraging lived experience - "Engaging People on Probation". I saw it as an opportunity to make a positive change to my local probation area. It has the potential to be a game changer. My team at Release Mates were in uproar when I applied. "You can't become one of them" were the words repeated to me over, and over. And they were right - I couldn't. When I was shortlisted to the interview stage, there were links at the bottom of the email to the "Civil Service Dictionary" and "Code of Practice". Therein lies the problem - I'm a prison leaver, not a civil servant. You're either one or the other. I'm not going to change my vocabulary to suit a role where my own lived experience, including the words I use, are required to change. That defeats the purpose of the role. More recently, I asked for tickets to go to the launch of the HMPPS Insights lived experience charter later this year. I even got an email saying my place had been secured. I looked forward to attending the event to see the progress of lived experience in the criminal justice system. But no, as a Director of a lived experience company, with my own lived experience, I was later told I wasn't allowed to attend a lived experience event as it was for HMPPS staff only. It is entirely disingenuous to hold a lived experience event that is closed off to those with lived experience - like a football match with no footballers.

If the criminal justice system is to make this latest lived experience trend work, it needs to tread carefully. It can't be half hearted - the worlds of civil servants and prison leavers are at polar opposites. They can't be compromised. They either make a full, whole hearted commitment to embracing lived experience, or they leave it be for privately run projects like Release Mates to perform effectively. Going back to the AA book: "Half measures availed us nothing". Picking out the parts of lived experience which fit in with the bureaucracy of the justice system, and discarding the rest, will do more harm than good.