Criminal Justice & Prison Lived Experience Speaker
Powerful Conversations About Crime, Prison, Consequences, Rehabilitation & Change.
SEETE provides engaging criminal justice and prison lived experience talks, presentations and workshops for prisons, probation services, police, schools, colleges, universities, youth services, conferences and professional development events.
Our talks use authentic lived experience to explore the realities of crime, imprisonment, consequences, relationships, rehabilitation, responsibility and meaningful personal change.
These are not presentations designed to glorify crime or entertain an audience with stories about offending.
They use lived experience responsibly to encourage people to think, question, reflect and have conversations that are sometimes difficult to begin in other ways.
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From Lived Experience to Professional Insight.
More Than a Prison Story
A powerful lived experience speaker can provide something that textbooks, policies and statistics cannot.
Perspective.
SEETE's talks draw upon extensive lived experience of the criminal justice system, including serious offending, lengthy periods in custody, prison culture, relationships, rehabilitation, employment and the challenges involved in creating a different life.
But lived experience alone is not enough.
The value comes from being able to reflect upon that experience, understand it and turn it into learning that can benefit somebody else.
SEETE uses lived experience as a professional tool to explore why people offend, how attitudes develop, how prison is experienced, what can encourage or prevent change and what rehabilitation can actually look like in practice.
Who Are SEETE's Talks For?
Our lived experience talks and workshops can be adapted for different audiences.
People in Prison
Engaging talks designed to encourage prisoners to reflect on choices, consequences, identity, responsibility, relationships and their future.
Prison Staff & HMPPS Professionals
Lived experience presentations providing staff with insight into prison culture, prisoner perceptions, communication, relationships, rehabilitation and how professional interactions can influence change.
Probation & Criminal Justice Professionals
Sessions exploring the realities of offending, imprisonment, release, reintegration and the sometimes overlooked challenges people experience when attempting to build a different life.
Police
Talks providing lived experience perspectives on offending, criminal identity, authority, policing, prison and rehabilitation.
Schools, Colleges & Young People
Age-appropriate talks exploring choices, consequences, peer influence, criminal lifestyles and the reality behind perceptions of crime and prison.
Universities
Sessions suitable for students studying criminology, criminal justice, policing, probation, psychology, social work and related subjects, bringing lived experience into academic learning.
Conferences & Professional Events
Keynote-style talks and facilitated discussions exploring lived experience, rehabilitation, prison culture, criminal justice and organisational learning.
SEETE Signature Talks
The Prison Officer & The Gangster!
Sometimes the Person You Least Expect Can Change the Way You See the World.
The Prison Officer & The Gangster explores the unexpected relationship between two people who, on paper, stood on opposite sides of the prison system.
One was responsible for enforcing the rules.
The other had spent years breaking them.
The talk explores how an unexpected relationship between a prisoner and prison officer challenged established attitudes towards authority, trust, respect and change.
It asks important questions:
What makes a prisoner respect a prison officer?
Can professional relationships influence rehabilitation?
Can somebody challenge your thinking without judging you?
What happens when we stop seeing only the uniform or the prison number and begin seeing the person?
The talk provides valuable insight for both prisoners and professionals and can create powerful conversations about the importance of relationships within rehabilitation.
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Can a Leopard Change Its Spots?
Does Your Past Have to Determine Your Future?
People who repeatedly offend can eventually begin to believe that offending is simply part of who they are.
Others may believe the same thing about them.
“People don't change.”
“Once a criminal, always a criminal.”
“A leopard never changes its spots.”
This talk challenges that assumption.
Using lived experience of crime, imprisonment and personal change, Can a Leopard Change Its Spots? explores the difference between acknowledging your past and allowing your past to control your future.
It examines:
- Identity
- Choices
- Responsibility
- Criminal thinking
- Relationships
- Turning points
- Motivation
- Rehabilitation
- Relapse and setbacks
- Building a different future
- Stereotypes
The message is not that change is easy.
It is that change requires somebody to begin making different choices consistently, particularly when the old choices are easier.
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Happiness Forgets What Loneliness Remembers
The Parts of Crime We Don't Always Remember
People can remember the excitement associated with crime.
The money.
The status.
The lifestyle.
The friendships.
The adrenaline.
But memory can be selective.
Happiness Forgets What Loneliness Remembers explores the things that are often ignored or forgotten when a criminal lifestyle is making you happy. Until they are arrested, put in handcuffs and placed in that lonely cell. This is when they start to think and remember the real things of importance.
Children growing up while you are absent.
Relationships ending.
Parents becoming older.
Birthdays and Christmases missed.
The people who stop visiting.
Opportunities disappearing.
Starting again.
And the quiet moments when the consequences become impossible to ignore.
This talk asks participants to consider a simple but difficult question:
"Was what I gained ever really worth what I lost?"
It can be particularly powerful for people in custody, young people and audiences exploring the realities and consequences of offending.
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Talks for Prison Staff
Understanding the Person Behind the Prison Number
SEETE can deliver lived experience sessions specifically for prison officers and other prison professionals.
These talks can provide insight into how prisoners may experience:
- Authority
- Staff communication
- Key work
- Incentives and sanctions
- Respect
- Cultural differences
- Trust
- Rehabilitation
- Long-term imprisonment
- Release and resettlement
The purpose is not to tell prison staff how to do their jobs.
It is to provide a perspective that staff do not normally have access to.
Hearing how an interaction was experienced from the other side of the cell door can create opportunities for reflection and professional development.
These sessions can also be combined with SEETE's Cultural Awareness & Cultural Competency Training for Prison Staff.
Talks for People in Custody
Credibility Creates Conversation
People in prison have often heard professionals tell them why they need to change.
Sometimes the same message can be received differently when it comes from somebody who understands the environment from personal experience.
SEETE uses that credibility carefully.
We do not tell prisoners:
“I changed, therefore you should change.”
Instead, we encourage them to examine their own experiences.
What has crime given you?
What has it taken away?
Who has been affected?
What patterns keep repeating?
What would genuinely need to change?
And perhaps most importantly:
What do you want the next chapter of your life to look like?
Talks for Young People
Showing the Reality Behind the Image
Crime can sometimes be presented to young people through social media, music, peers and popular culture in ways that emphasise money, status and excitement while giving much less attention to consequences.
SEETE can provide age-appropriate lived experience talks that challenge those perceptions without preaching or attempting to frighten young people.
Sessions can explore:
- Choices
- Peer pressure
- Criminal exploitation
- Consequences
- Prison
- Family impact
- Relationships
- Identity
- Responsibility
- Future opportunities
The objective is to encourage young people to think critically about the choices placed in front of them.
Lived Experience for Universities & Professional Education
SEETE can contribute to learning for students and professionals studying or working within:
Criminology
Criminal Justice
Prison Studies
Policing
Probation
Social Work
Psychology
Youth Justice
Substance Misuse
Rehabilitation and Resettlement
Sessions can combine a lived experience presentation with questions, facilitated discussion and reflection, allowing students to connect academic theory with real-world experience.
Talk, Workshop or Keynote
SEETE can tailor delivery according to the audience and event.
Lived Experience Talk
Approximately 60–90 minutes, including presentation and audience questions.
Extended Talk & Discussion
Approximately 90–120 minutes, allowing greater opportunity for facilitated discussion and audience participation.
Half-Day Workshop
Combines lived experience with structured exercises, discussion and learning around selected themes.
Conference Keynote
A focused, engaging presentation designed for conferences, professional events and organisational development days.
Bespoke Session
Content can be developed around the needs of an establishment or organisation.
Lived Experience With Purpose
SEETE believes lived experience should never be used simply because somebody has an interesting story.
For lived experience to create value, there must be a reason for telling it.
Our talks are designed to achieve one or more of the following:
- Challenge perceptions
- Encourage reflection
- Develop understanding
- Start difficult conversations
- Support rehabilitation
- Improve professional understanding
- Encourage personal responsibility
- Humanise criminal justice issues
- Help people recognise consequences
- Demonstrate that meaningful change is possible
The experience gets people's attention.
What they learn from it is what matters.
Combine a Talk With SEETE Training
Organisations can commission a lived experience presentation as a standalone event or combine it with other SEETE services.
For example:
Lived Experience Talk + Cultural Awareness Training
For prison staff and criminal justice professionals.
Lived Experience Talk + Prisoner Awareness Programme
For people in custody.
Lived Experience Talk + ISFL Workshop
For recovery-focused prison environments.
Lived Experience Talk + Mentor Development
For existing or prospective prisoner peer mentors.
This enables an organisation to move from inspiration towards structured learning and development.
Book SEETE for Your Organisation
SEETE welcomes speaking enquiries from:
Prisons
HMPPS
Probation Services
Police Forces
Youth Justice Services
Schools
Colleges
Universities
Local Authorities
Charities
Criminal Justice Organisations
Conferences
and organisations seeking meaningful lived experience input into professional learning or development.
Talks can be tailored according to audience, objectives, available time and setting.
Book a Criminal Justice Lived Experience Speaker
A Story Can Get Someone's Attention. The Right Conversation Can Change Their Thinking.
SEETE's lived experience talks are about more than telling the story of what happened.
They are about asking:
Why did it happen?
Who did it affect?
What was learned?
What changed?
And what can somebody else take from that experience?
If you are looking for a criminal justice lived experience speaker, prison speaker, rehabilitation speaker or lived experience workshop for your organisation, contact SEETE to discuss your requirements.
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Lived Experience Speaker
The Prison Officer & The Gangster
A powerful lived-experience talk on crime, custody, change, and the power of
human relationships
The Prison Officer & The Gangster is a compelling, honest and transformative 1 – 2 hour talk from Bingy, once described by the courts and police as being a leader of a Jamaican criminal organised gang. Bingy is grounded in over 30 years of lived experience within the criminal justice system, talks openly about his serious offending, rehabilitation, employment, and now a leader in trying to help reducing re-offending. Between 1992 and 2022, Bingy was deeply involved in high level criminal activity. During this time, he received three long-term prison sentences for serious offences related to violence, weapons and drug supply and spent a total of 18 years in custody. This is not a story of quick fixes or instant change, it is a real account of mindset, identity, consequences, and how meaningful human relationships can challenge the old prison code of “us (prisoners) and them (prison officers).” At the heart of this talk is the interaction with a prison officer, a relationship that disrupted everything Bingy believed about authority, trust, and himself. That experience became a turning point, helping Bingy move away from entrenched criminal thinking towards accountability, growth, and long-term change.
1. What the talk covers
• Early childhood experiences and the foundations of criminal behaviour
• Bingy’s first offence and first experience of prison
• Escalation into serious offending and his first long-term sentence at age 28
• Social Indicators that can influence criminal behaviour
• The cumulative impact of repeated custody
• His third and final prison sentence received in 2017
• The prison officer relationship that challenged the “prisoners vs officers” mindset
• Release in 2022 with a completely transformed outlook on life and decision-making
• Transition from custody to employment, purpose, and responsibility
• Lessons around choice, consequences, trust, power, and change
2. Who this talk is for
This talk is suitable for delivery within:
• Prisons and probation services
• Schools, colleges, and universities
• Police and criminal justice forums
• Youth justice, safeguarding, and social care teams
• Staff training and development days
• Community, voluntary, and third-sector organisations
3. Format
• 60-120 minute talk
• Optional Q&A session immediately afterwards
• Adapted to suit the audience, setting, and purpose
• Delivered in an engaging, honest, and reflective style
4. Why this talk matters
This is not theory.
It is not a lecture.
It is real lived experience, told with responsibility and purpose. The Rude Bwoy and the Prison Officer demonstrates how one relationship, handled differently, can change thinking, behaviour, and futures- on both sides of the door.