It is unsurprising that the speaker for Plaid Cymru’s rally today has chosen HMP Swansea as his venue, having quite often chosen prisons with similar histories for rallies in the past. Even for those locations this rally seems grim, a homeless camp only a dozen yards from the small park where the small stage is being assembled. Some look uncomfortable with the situation on both sides, but the calm stays, in the shadow of the ominous Victorian prison. When the speaker, /u/NicolasBroaddus, takes the stage, he direct his attention towards the windows of the prison as he speaks.

“I’m glad so many of you could come, and I’m as always grateful to hopefully be a welcome distraction to the captive audience in His Majesty’s Prison Swansea here today. They deserve to know that they are not forgotten by the people of Wales or her politicians, and that they deserve to be treated with basic human decency just like everyone else.

Because basic human decency, good treatment, is not something that was ever intended for this place, Cox’s Farm as it was once called in an echo of plantation labour. This is one of the most overcrowded prisons in Britain, holding 364 inmates with a capacity of only 219. Even within the capacity that does exist, there is not even adequate running water or toilet facilities. Inspectors have noted for almost a decade that each prisoner is not even guaranteed a single shower each day with the state of facilities.

And it is not like these people are not trying to help themselves, HMP Swansea is where prisoners founded the Prisoner Listening Scheme with the Samaritans. This program has expanded to prisons across the UK, and started from genuine and hopeful mutual aid between prisoners here. The only people who are not trying to help these prisoners seem to be the staff and establishment who have stood by while 8 inmates committed suicide over the last decade, and several more attempted suicide. During a six month investigation of the facility that resulted from one suicide, 134 self harm incidents were recorded.

Juries and independent investigators continue to find that Swansea is not fit for purpose, and look at it! This is an outdated oubliette from an age we were supposed to have moved forward from. There are quite literally the unmarked bodies of 15 executed prisoners within the walls of the prison itself, including the last person hanged in Wales. How can we claim to be working for a modern and restorative justice system when we let this stand as anything but a museum to the sins of our past?

Plaid Cymru wants to see this place torn down, and prisoners rehoused to proper facilities, with medical and carceral staff who do not have a history of documented abuse. HMP Berwyn quite literally has the open capacity for every inmate here, and was opened in 2017. It has modern facilities and room to spare, yet we let men suffer here for no good reason.

There is much more to be done to change our justice system into something that actually helps our society rather than traumatising everyone it touches. There are many people locked up for no reason but a misguided sense of punitive justice, one that only damages our communities more. Plaid continues to support a transition of non violent and non sexual sentences towards noncustodial solutions. A man who has his car stolen wants his car back and in proper order, he does not want to take the person’s job and future and entirely destroy it. By working together with communities, medical professionals, and the relevant law enforcement, we can find solutions that build community ties stronger rather than driving deeper the wedge between poverty and wealth.

That poverty aspect cannot be simply brushed under a rug of personal responsibility like conservatives are wont to. Almost half of the children of Swansea lived under the poverty line in 2019, thankfully things have improved, but the damage needs more to truly be repaired. This city also sees some of the highest rates of homeless death and drug overdoses in the entire UK, a city, like this prison, left to die by so many over the years. Plaid wants to keep working to undo that, hopefully with all of your votes here.”