Prisoners take part in domestic violence workshops

A unique educational programme in Northern Ireland’s prison service has seen hundreds of convicted criminals voluntarily learning about male violence against women and girls.

The charity White Ribbon NI has been running the workshops across Hydebank Wood, Magilligan and Maghaberry prisons.

Tahnee McCorry, the charity’s chief executive, said it was the most important work she did in her fight to end violence against women.

It is also believed to be unique across prison services in the UK and Ireland.

“The difference in this is that it’s encouraging certain conversations in rooms where [they] just haven’t been had before,” Ms McCorry told BBC News NI.

“This is probably one of my most challenging pieces of work, but the piece of work that I believe will transform attitudes in the long run.

“It is open to anyone with any type of offence. As long as you want to learn, you want to engage, and you want to challenge yourself.”

White Ribbon sessions involve case study scenario work, learning safe ways to intervene in concerning situations and being given techniques on how to manage disclosures by a victim.

According to Ms McCorry, it’s the honest environment she encourages in her workshops that makes them so impactful.

“This is a no-holds-barred conversation. You can say anything you want and I want to know what you really think about this issue,” she explained.

“I want to know your real thoughts and feelings around it, but I also want a space to be able to give you the information that I have over my career and as a woman, myself.”

In the past year there were more than 2,500 prosecutions under the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act 2021, and more than 90% of those convicted were male.

In 2023/24 there were 1,877 people in prisons in Northern Ireland – 1,787 were men, more than a third were under 39 years of age and violent crimes made up the largest proportion of offences.

Ms McCorry said many young men at Hydebank Wood, where the project was piloted, grew up witnessing domestic violence.

“When I came in here, that wasn’t on my radar,” she said.

“I hadn’t truly thought about the fact that the young man I was working with would have been so impacted by the experiences that they’d had when they were younger, when they watched violence against their mother, who was their primary caregiver, who was risk assessing her life every single day.

“I can see from talking to the men in here how that changed the trajectory of their whole life, there’s no way it couldn’t. It’s not an excuse, but it’s a reason.

“Unless we break those kind of cycles, we’re going to keep seeing a lot of the same issues in Northern Ireland.”

Two young men, who are prisoners at Hydebank, spoke to BBC News NI about how the workshops have changed their views on violence against women and girls.

John, not his real name, said: “I didn’t really think much of it to be honest with you.

“But the more I did the course, the more I realised how important it is and how much violence against women and girls actually happens in Northern Ireland.

“There’s a lot of things that you wouldn’t even realise [are violence], like jokes… It all builds up, it leads to bigger things, crimes and things you wouldn’t really think about.

“I have a daughter and I would like the communities to be safer for her too.”

Another young man, who we have referred to as Sean, said: “It sort of opened up a discussion, you know, something that wouldn’t have been talked about.

“Sometimes when we’ve been down with Tahnee we would keep that topic of discussion that we were learning on and focusing on that day back onto the landing.”

Unit manager Cathy Russell said the course is “absolutely unique” in terms of what typically is available in prisons.

She added that it is changing the community within Hydebank.

“The boys will have conversations that we would never have had before,” Ms Russell said.

“Young men are coming to us, coming forward, asking to be a part of it, it’s changed the whole conversation around violence against women and girls in this community.”

People often question how it is possible to measure results when new campaigns and policies are launched around the issue of violence against women and girls.

Ms McCorry admitted that can be a difficult and frustrating query.

“It’ll be hard to know, and these changes will be slow. And it’s frustrating at times when you’re asked about the changes that your programme leads to.

“People mean the three month changes or the six month changes, but I’m looking at the 10 year changes, I’m looking at the cycles this breaks.

“It’s a big mountain to climb, but hopefully it’ll happen.”