‘It’s a complete scandal’: The aristocrat fighting to help prison children escape the stigma of crime
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D.Although born into a world of wealth and privilege, Lady Edwina Grosvenor saw firsthand the devastating impact of a childhood tainted by the stigma of crime.
She was just a teenager when she first started working with mothers at risk of losing their children during a work experience placement at a charity in North Wales.
The “eye-opening” experience came just a few years after he was taken to speak to two heroin addicts at a drugs treatment center in Liverpool by his late father, the sixth Duke of Westminster, one of Britain’s richest men. She wanted her daughters to understand the risks of taking drugs.
The transformative experiences helped ignite a lifelong passion for criminal justice reform, a world apart from life on the family’s 11,000-acre estate in Cheshire.
He had been “bitten by the prison bug” when he returned home from his trip to Nepal, where he was working at the Central Prison in Kathmandu.
After completing an undergraduate degree in criminology and sociology, which included a thesis on babies born and taken from their mothers in prison, she began a career in prison reform and philanthropy; He has at times been a vocal critic of successive governments’ neglect of the justice sector.
Hope Street, a pioneering women’s center opening in 2023, offers a groundbreaking alternative to help keep female offenders and their children out of prison. It’s a plan the government hopes will be replicated across the country in a bid to reduce the number of women incarcerated.
He is now determined to challenge the hidden and stigmatized reality faced by young people growing up in the shadow of the justice system with a college scholarship program.
Recipients will be supported to obtain a college education and a brighter future, whether they have a parent born in prison or have served time themselves.
“Prisoners’ children are often more forgotten in this country than any other group I can think of, and that is a complete scandal,” Lady Edwina said. Independent.
“I think it’s hard to find your tribe when you’re young. I think we can all remember what that feels like, but then imagine living with the shame of having a parent in prison or a brother or sister.
“How do you find other people going through similar things?”
No official data is recorded on how many children’s lives are ruined by the time their parents spend in prison. Many fall into care, and research shows they have the worst educational outcomes of any social group in the country, with students less likely than their peers to go to and succeed at university.
According to government figures, only 13 per cent of students in permanent care for 12 months or more entered higher education; On the other hand, this rate was 43 percent for all other students.
Lady Edwina added: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could come out of the shadows and avoid this embarrassment and know someone else who might be in the same boat?”
The project, the first of its kind with Manchester Metropolitan University, where Lady Edwina completed a master’s degree in crime scene management and forensic evidence in her 40s, will also support young offenders who have been “almost erased” from society.
Lady Edwina continued: “I think these children and young people are constantly failed by adults.”
“Therefore, after they have served their sentences, when their sentences are over, isn’t it the duty of educational institutions and of us adults to do everything in our power to ensure that they live a better life?”
In addition to financial support for the nine students, the university will have dedicated staff to ensure welfare recipients and other students affected by the justice system are supported during their studies.
He hopes the program will simply offer young people a chance.
“It’s just a chance to learn, you know, a chance to get an education, a chance to get into an educational institution without feeling like they have to hide something, like they don’t belong there,” he added.
“You know, education should be for everyone, no matter what… As long as they can enter an educational institution, learn and have a good time. You know, it’s that simple.”
‘Emma’, now a Manchester Metropolitan University student, struggled with her criminal record after growing up
“I was born into an at-risk family and spent much of my childhood in the care of the local authority. Unfortunately, like many other people with experience in care, these negative experiences and the lack of life skills learned at the time contributed to some poor decisions that resulted in a lengthy criminal record.
“This criminal record has become a hindrance in almost everything I do, making it seemingly impossible for me to turn my life around.
“Finally realizing the importance of education and how it can open doors to opportunities and better employment, I decided to return to study and was accepted into the School of Sociology and Criminology at Manchester Metropolitan University.
“I had no idea how life-changing this would be for me. ‘Desistance theory’ is the process by which an individual reduces their level of crime and eventually pursues a crime-free lifestyle. This theory states that having strong ties to a community, a sense of purpose, recognition of value from others, and feelings of hope and self-efficacy, among other factors, contribute positively to people successfully rebuilding a crime-free, pro-social lifestyle.”
“I found all this during my degree at Manchester Met, where I was surrounded by experts who could see beyond my past and offer unwavering support throughout this transformative experience.”
He believes meaningful progress towards better rehabilitation of offenders is often hampered by an “absolute miserable lack of understanding” of the justice sector and calls for awareness training to be introduced in schools as part of the national curriculum.
He hopes this will help combat the misperception that people coming out of prison are all “high-end, dangerous, knife-wielding maniacs” and give employers more confidence in hiring ex-offenders.
“I think if this piece had been made, then there would have been more organizations and businesses and people who would feel braver because I think they are afraid,” he added.
“You know, I worked in the employment of people coming out of prison for a long time too, and there’s a really interesting perspective on this. And someone said to me, look, Edwina, if I hire from prison, I know who that man or woman is.
“I know what they’ve been doing for the last few years. They can’t hide what they’ve done. I know so much about that person that I can make a real judgment in real life and it’s all going to work out one way or another, right?
“Or I could hire someone off the street. They could lie about their name. I don’t know where they’ve been for the last couple of years. Yeah, I could look up references. This could all be made up, you know. And I think that’s a really good way to look at it.”
“Just because someone is in prison or has been convicted doesn’t mean they are any more of a risk than the person walking down the street.”
This knowledge gap extends to policy decisions being made by many people who “don’t know much about prisons and don’t spend much time in them.”
“I think that’s a real weakness of ours,” he added.
Lady Edwina, who is married to historian and television presenter Dan Snow, reserves the right to decide on major justice reforms currently going through parliament, including plans for reduced detention of criminals and controversial proposals to abolish the right to jury trials for some offences.
“Words are words,” he said, adding: “Until you see it happen on the field, it really doesn’t mean anything.”
But he also hit back at news that the government was preparing to reduce upfront spending on training courses in some prisons by up to 50 percent, describing it as “a real step back.”
Access to education is “everything” in prison, he said, and can make the difference between having a safe, calm environment and one that’s dangerous and out of control.
“I’m not a party to what’s going on behind the scenes, but justice is an unprotected department,” he continued. “So if the treasury wants to cut anything anywhere, it’s always going to be the unprotected ministries. And you know, who’s fighting for the justice department the same way you’re fighting for education, you’re fighting for health.”
He described the prison system, which he said the Labor government had inherited in the crisis, as a “costly failure” after decades of underinvestment.
“People don’t realize that if prisons are unstable and dangerous, that directly affects the person on the street,” he said, because — except for about 70 inmates sentenced to life in prison — everyone else will be released.
““So it’s actually really important that our prisons work and that people are stable there, because they’re going to be out on the streets somewhere near you.”
Professor Julie Scott Jones, vice-chancellor of Manchester Met’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, said the Lady Edwina Grosvenor Scholarships were an exciting way to improve access to higher education for people whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system.
“Many of our students at Manchester Met who have experience of the justice or care system continue to work in this area with a desire to improve the system for others,” he added.
“Not only will these scholarships provide access to higher education, they also have the potential to influence policy across the UK by creating a pipeline of change-makers who truly understand how the system affects young people like them.”
The partnership continues the Grosvenor family’s long-standing links with Manchester Met, where Lady Edwina’s late father, Gerald Grosvenor, was chancellor from 1992 to 2005.
Current vice-chancellor Professor Malcolm Press said: “Young people’s lived experiences should not hinder their future life success, and the Lady Edwina Grosvenor Scholarships will provide the opportunity and support to enable these young people to reach the full potential of their talents.”
The first recipients of the Lady Edwina Grosvenor Scholarship will begin their studies in September 2026.
