CAREERS
Prison governor Ali Barker on her career journey
It was while studying geography at the University of Oxford that Ali Barker found herself thinking about two potential career paths: becoming a social worker or a role in the prison service. After enrolling on a training scheme at HMP Pentonville in London, she has spent the last 20 years working in prisons up and down the country, rising to the rank of governor. She currently works at HMP Bedford.
I was at university when I saw a poster in the careers office advertising roles in the prison service.
It was quite explicit – it said: ‘Burglars, rapists and murderers. But they’re people, too. Can you work with them?’ And I instantly thought, ‘Yes.’ We often think of victims and perpetrators of crime as two separate categories, but the reality of why people commit crimes can be more nuanced – any of us could make a split-second decision that might lead us to end up in prison.
The recruitment process involved lots of role play, to see how you might de-escalate and resolve conflict, which I found really engaging. For example, somebody might shout at you and they monitor how you respond. After that, there are a few months of training actually it’s about being able to listen and empathise, and constructively challenge prisoners. Society and the prison service are recognising more and more that women have a lot of skills to bring to working in the system. I don’t necessarily think these skills are gendered – the job is guiding people to develop. There’s positive and negative feedback, but you have to maintain a good relationship.
After three years, in which I served as an Officer, then principal officer, then junior governor, I became the deputy governor of HMP Coldingley in Surrey. Then I was given a governor role at HMP Send, and I’m now at my sixth prison as governor. A big part of the role is line managing and supervising the senior leadership team, but also establishing clear management structures – every prisoner has a key worker responsible for their welfare and an offender manager responsible for their sentence management.
I’ll begin each day with a morning operational briefing with managers. I’ll attend meetings to ensure we’re delivering on safety, security and staff training, and see external partners, such as the police chief constable and the NHS. before you go to a prison for the first time and begin a week-long induction.
