Prisoners Learning How To Stitch Lives Back Together
A shared cell at a large male jail is an unlikely setting for a bit of cross-stitch but inmates at Leeds Prison are queuing up to take needlework to their cells.
The Category B prison holds offenders who have committed everything from burglary and drug-dealing to murder. Now prison staff are using needlework in the battle to cut the cycle of re-offending.
It’s a lengthy walk to the textile workshop, through long cream corridors, countless locked iron doors and up a winding metal staircase. Inside the echoing hall, inmates dressed in joggers and sweat-tops, stitch boxer shorts on sewing machines beneath the glare of strong strip lights. It’s busy and noisy in the main workshop, but in a quiet room to one side sits a group of young men, quietly sewing cross-stitch Christmas designs and stuffed toys.
Picture: Fine Cell Work
Read the article in the Yorkshire Post: Prisoner cross-stitch
Nicky Solloway 