The Longford Prize

The Longford Prize is an annual award presented to an organisation or individual working in the field of social or penal reform. It began in 2001 and is named in memory of Lord Longford, a British Labour Party politician and penal reform campaigner.

The Longford Prize is awarded annually by a prize committee on behalf of the trustees and patrons of the Frank Longford Charitable Trust. It is sponsored by The Independent newspaper and organised in association with the Prison Reform Trust. It recognises the contribution of an individual, group or organisation working in the area of penal or social reform who/which has shown outstanding qualities of humanity, courage, persistence and originality. The Prize is usually presented at the Trust's annual Longford Lecture.

The prize

The Longford Prize Winner is presented with a cheque for £1,000 whilst runners-up get £250. Both the winner and runners-up receive a certificate.

Judges

The Prize Committee is chaired by the novelist Judith Kazantzis Lord Longford's daughter, and judges include David Ramsbotham (formerly Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons), Juliet Lyon (Director of the Prison Reform Trust), Sir Peter Lloyd (former Minister for Prisons), and Peter Stanford (Director of the Frank Longford Charitable Trust). Former Prize Winners also often sit on the judging panel.

Criteria

Nominations are judged on how the nominee has

* undertaken specific work in the field of social and/or community work; * undertaken specific work in the field of penal reform, with prisoners or ex-prisoners; * drawn attention to a particular area of human abuse, either on an individual or systemic level; * drawn attention to a particular or general failure of social or penal provision; * provided particularly effective ideas for reform or policy recommendations; * acted on a specific occasion, or continuously, with outstanding courage in the area of social and penal affairs.

Past winners

The 2007 prize was awarded to Prisoners Abroad, a UK charity which supports Britons who are imprisoned overseas. The judges praised "its courage, persistence and humanity, over almost three decades, sometimes in the face of public and official indifference and even hostility" [cite web | url=http://www.longfordtrust.org/11187/index.html | publisher=Longford Trust | title=The Longford Prize | accessdate=2007-12-03] . Special mention was also made to two other entries: The Forgiveness Project; and Joe Baden and the Open Book Project.

In 2006 The Longford Prize was given to FPWP Hibiscus, a small charity, working with female foreign national prisoners. Special mentions went to Chance UK; Roma Hooper; and Lucie Russell and Smart Justice.

The 2005 prize was awarded to Steven Taylor, Director of the Forum on Prisoner Education. Himself an ex-prisoner, Steve had, the judges believed, succeeded in putting prison education on the political and public agenda. They valued his expertise, his commitment, his campaigning skills and the role model he provided for others of rebuilding his life and working to build a better society.

Christopher Morgan was awarded the prize in 2004 for setting up the Shannon Trust in 1997. Its volunteers go into prisons where they train literate prisoners to teach fellow inmates who have problems reading and writing. ‘I have seen no-hopers and self harmers turn into smart, alert prisoners with self-esteem because of this scheme’, one prison governor has written.

Barbara Tudor was awarded the Longford Prize in 2003. She was nominated by an ex-prison governor and seconded by a former Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, and two victims of crimes who had benefitted from her work on restorative justice. In commending Barbara Tudor’s achievements, the Longford Prize judges said that her work pointed a constructive way forward in tackling crime and represented the Probation Service at its very best.

The winner of the first Longford Prize was Audrey Edwards, in 2002. On November 27 1994 Audrey Edwards’s mentally-ill son, Christopher was murdered in Chelmsford Prison where he was on remand. He was beaten and kicked to death by his cellmate, a paranoid schizophrenic. Audrey together with her husband Paul began a quest to find out what happened to him which has developed into a campaign to improve mental health care for offenders. She has addressed MPs, the Church of England General Synod and the GMC among others and in March 2002 won a landmark judgement in the European Court of Human Rights that her son had been denied his right to life by his treatment. Audrey chairs the Essex Restorative Justice Group and is a member of the Churches Criminal Justice Forum. The Longford Prize judges were greatly impressed by the courage with which Audrey Edwards had moved forward from personal tragedy to focus public attention on mental health and prisons. They were impressed by her success in making the system sit up and take notice, and by her fearlessness in going against society’s current hostility to offenders to embrace ideas of restorative justice, understanding and forgiveness. As one judge put it, she has worked to make good out of evil.

References

External links

* [http://www.longfordtrust.org Frank Longford Charitable Trust]