Johnny (left) was awarded a Certificate in honour of the work he has done for people in the cold weather.

Johnny Ashton has been in prison twice. He's also had difficulties with drugs and alcohol. He also stammers. So, when he re-entered society, he had a lot of things to deal with. But, in his uphill journey, Johnny has not only appeared on local radio to talk about his stammer but was recently awarded a Certificate in honour of the work he has done for people in the cold weather. In the picture you can see Johnny, on the left, with Peter Cookson, the Manager of the YMCA in Birkenhead.

Says Johnny "I don't know what kind of work I may venture into next, but there are a few avenues I could go down. The building game is dead at the moment, so I may try to be a mentor for drug addicts and drug abusers. I have been talking to an organisation which is going to help me get the qualifications. This will take time, but I've been clean for a long time now.  I'm ashamed of using drugs and alcohol, but I can see that I used them as a crutch and I now understand a lot about the subject"

It's worth looking back to BSA's project on young offenders and stammering, which was a far-sighted enquiry at the time. Studies in the USA had suggested that 10-15% of the prison population had a communication disorder, with stammering included in the classification used (Crowe 1991). A study of young offenders in Scotland had showed that 11% of young offenders had communication problems. Of this group at least 10% had a stammer (Hamilton 1999). Professor Karen Bryan reported that "I recently joined a prison Inspectorate team and screened 10% of young offenders in one establishment for speech and language difficulties. Only a brief overview screening was possible, but 47% of the offenders were rated as having moderate speech difficulty with over half of this group reporting that they had a stammer or that they had been told they stammered.  Only 5 offenders with a stammer had access to speech and language therapy in 1997". You can read more in Karen Bryan's article Stammering in Prison.

BSA Chair, Leys Geddes, is considering whether the BSA should look again at stammering in prison. "It's a very clear example" he says "of how stammering puts people in danger of being alienated by society. So if we had more speech therapy in prisons (as well as many other places!), I'm sure it would be incredibly useful. Lord Ramsbotham, the former Chief Inspector of Prisons, has said that the speech therapist is the most important person in a prison".

Johnny's journey will continue to be hard work. But, ever the optimist, he cheerfully told us that life begins at forty!

February 2010