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Each of those words conjures up a different picture.
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None of them tell you exactly who someone is.
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My name is Stephen Akpabio-Klementowski.
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I'm a PhD candidate
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and I'm a lecturer in criminology at The Open University.
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I work with students in prisons.
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I love what I do.
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It feels deeply personal to me,
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because I used to be a prisoner too.
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All of these labels have been mine.
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So growing up, life was tough.
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My father died in a car crash when I was a teenager.
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And that hit me really hard.
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I didn't see the world as a meritocracy.
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I had to grab what I could.
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But being sent to prison for dealing drugs was a shock.
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I was sentenced to 16 years.
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For the first three months inside,
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I didn't speak to anyone.
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Eventually, I started working in the kitchens.
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And as people got to know me,
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I was eventually assessed for my educational potential
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and encouraged after that assessment to enroll at the Open University.
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But the most difficult barrier
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was actually inside of me.
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I'd left school with no qualifications. Nothing.
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I was scared of my future
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and I decided to try.
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My day job working in the kitchens and on the servery
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meant that I had to study at night.
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So I had to study on the toilet, while my cellmate snored.
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So when I finished my first module,
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it gave me hope, and it gave me something I could focus on.
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There was no going back now.
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Other prisoners and guards kept asking me why I was wasting my time -
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studying wouldn't matter with my criminal record.
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I felt I was changing.
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I discovered I loved learning. And that was enough to keep me going.
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I served eight years of my 16-year sentence.
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By the time I left prison, I had completed my first degree.
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I had also completed two further degrees at Masters level.
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So, after I was released, I got a job working with students in prisons -
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not in spite of who I was, but because of it.
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It's hard to describe how I felt
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the first time I went back to prison as a lecturer,
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and the governor came down, and shook my hand.
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What I want people to know
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is that I'm not different or special -
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anybody can do this.
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Almost half of all prisoners have left school
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without achieving any formal qualification.
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I know how that feels. And it had a massive impact on my confidence.
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But that does not mean that you're not able to learn
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Everyone has the potential and the power to change.
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I've seen it. And I've lived it.
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It was Winston Churchill who said:
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“There is treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man.”
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What do we want from our prisons?
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Is the primary goal of prison to punish,
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or to help find a different path?
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The policy isn't coherent, you see.
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Research shows that education does reduce reoffending.
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It allows former prisoners to make different choices.
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So when I sit with prisoners, I say to them:
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“I was in your shoes. But I am now released, on the outside.
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I've got a good job. I've got a good life. I'm with my family.”
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Had I met somebody like me when I was younger,
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things might have been very different.
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No-one believed in me. I didn't believe in myself either.
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It's taken two decades to get here.
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And this is only the beginning.
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The word “prisoner” is just a label.
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I found freedom within my own mind.
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You need to remember that you have the capacity to learn.
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You have the capacity to change your life.
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There is treasure within each and every one of us.