Pia Sinha has led the Prison Reform Trust since 2023. In that time, she has seen a Conservative government finally admit to an overcrowding(过度拥挤) crisis that had tipped over the edge(越过临界点，失控). (It was in October 2023 that the early release scheme was devised; by May 2024, the Tories had also launched Operation Safeguard, using police cells as temporary housing.) She’s watched a change of government, then a change of prime minister, then Andy Burnham instantly assailed by negative headlines as the consequences of that early release scheme unfolded: prisoners had to actually be released early. “We’re a bit concerned about how [Burnham] has handled it,” she says, in the trust’s scruffy, un-corporate offices in central London, “but that’s in the knowledge that he had a bit of a hospital pass(烫手山芋，烂摊子).”
皮娅·辛哈自2023年起执掌监狱改革信托基金会。在此期间，她目睹保守党政府终于承认，监狱过度拥挤的危机已经失控。（2023年10月，提前释放计划出台；到2024年5月，保守党又启动了“安全守护行动”，把警局拘留室当作临时关押场所。）她还看着政府更迭、首相换人，随后安迪·伯纳姆因提前释放计划的后果而立刻被负面新闻缠身：囚犯真的不得不被提前释放。“我们对（伯纳姆）的处理方式有些担忧，”她在该基金会位于伦敦市中心、简陋而不像公司的办公室里说，“但我们也清楚，他接手的本就是个烫手山芋。”
To recap(回顾，扼要重述) on Burnham’s handling: when he came in in July, he paused the scheme for an urgent review; in August he announced a series of exclusions, further crimes for which people couldn’t be released early, including manslaughter(过失杀人（罪）) and death by dangerous driving. That solved an immediate problem, that the killers of PC Andrew Harper would otherwise have been released, but had the knock-on effect(连锁反应，连带影响) of reducing the numbers expected to be released by about a quarter. The conversation Sinha wants to have is what prison overcrowding looks like, what it does to prisoners and staff – and what it means for society.
回顾一下伯纳姆的处理方式：他7月上任后暂停了该计划，进行紧急审查；8月又宣布了一系列排除条款，规定更多罪行不得提前释放，包括过失杀人和危险驾驶致人死亡。这解决了眼下的一个问题——杀害警员安德鲁·哈珀的凶手本可能被释放——却产生了连锁反应，使预计获释人数减少了约四分之一。辛哈真正想谈的是：监狱过度拥挤究竟是什么样子，它对囚犯和工作人员有何影响，又对社会意味着什么。
Now 53, Sinha arrived in the UK from India with her parents, aged 14. “I think that’s part of the reason I can adapt from one prison to another: I had to learn how to survive and cope, you become very good at reading your environment(解读环境，察言观色),” she says, smiling at the implication that the teenagers of north Harrow, circa 1987, were not unlike a prison population. She studied psychology and economics, went on to do a masters in counselling psychology, and was running a pub in north London when she got a job at Holloway, the now defunct(已关闭的，不再存在的) women’s prison. When she got her first prison governorship(监狱长职位（或州长职位）) 14 years later, of the open prison Thorn Cross, she was very unusual – not just because she was the first Asian female prison governor, but also for her manner, which is sunny, personable, enquiring and receptive(乐于接受的，善于倾听的).
辛哈现年53岁，14岁时随父母从印度来到英国。“我想，这也是我能在一所又一所监狱之间适应的原因之一：我必须学会生存和应对，你会变得非常善于解读周围的环境，”她说着笑了起来，因为这话暗示1987年前后北哈罗的青少年和监狱里的囚犯没什么两样。她学过心理学和经济学，后来攻读心理咨询心理学硕士，在伦敦北部经营一家酒吧时，得到了霍洛威监狱的工作——那所女子监狱如今已经关闭。14年后，她首次出任监狱长，执掌开放式监狱索恩克罗斯，显得格外与众不同——不仅因为她是首位亚裔女性监狱长，还因为她的作风：阳光、亲和、爱提问、乐于倾听。