How to make friends and influence yourself: lessons from prison on fighting isolation

Can We Have Your Attention? · Jan 13, 2026 · 24m

In this episode, James & Claire are joined by Dr Katherine Albertson, a senior lecturer in Criminology at Sheffield Hallam University. Following on from our previous episode on radicalisation, we look at what happens to those people who are in the criminal justice system - those who by the very nature of where they are can't place their attention in the same way, and who often don't have attention placed on them. We hear how many feel isolated from the rest of society, and how peer mentors can help them acclimatise to a new and often scary environment.

Dr Katherine is here…