The Guardian

Every Monday for over a decade, I left my home on Peaks Island, Maine, boarded a ferry to town then drove inland to the Maine correctional center to lead a creative writing class for incarcerated women.

HMP Wandsworth in London. Arriving at a prison – any prison – still makes my heart race a little faster. I have been to more than 100 prisons for my research into how architecture and design can assist in rehabilitating offenders. But my first visit after 18 months of lockdown, to a prison deep in one of England’s most rural counties, felt especially disorienting. I sat quietly for a moment looking up at the towering wall that encircles the car park. It’s topped with coils of razor wire that...