David Kendall is waiting for a train on a rainy weekday morning when he answers my call. “Off anywhere nice?” I ask. He chuckles: “Just on my way to prison.” This call, with the sound of wind and trains rattling past, offers another world from the one he is about to enter. In prison, people are barred from technology and communication in the digital space.
“In the majority of prisons it’s still paper, word of mouth and hope,” Kendall says. He has spent over two decades working on creative projects in prisons and is the founder of Penned Up, a literary festival behind bars. “Most prisons have very little. They have phones, yes, but nothing else.”
Around one in 10 prisoners have routine access to the internet or a computer, according to Victoria Knight, an associate professor
