On your marks...! Staff at HMP Sudbury motivate prisoners to join Parkrun

You might not expect to see a parkrun behind the walls of your local prison, but 21 establishments in England and Wales regularly organise a run, with around 20,000 prisoners and staff seeing the benefits every year.

With research pointing towards the social, physical and psychological benefits of taking part in parkrun, the events are helping to boost mental health and reduce reoffending within prisons. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and parkrun are working in partnership to support custodial events and increase the number of sites able to host them.

Physical Education Instructors (PEIs) - specially trained prison officers - supervise and organise the weekly runs, with help from prisoners, and see the events as a key part of their working week.

Mark Sherriff (54), a PEI at HMP Sudbury, near Ashbourne in Derbyshire, helps organise the weekly parkrun around the grounds of the category D rehabilitation and resettlement prison. Mark himself is a former elite middle and long-distance runner, having previously represented the prison service in overseas and national competitions. He says:

“We run the parkrun at 9am every Saturday. It has attracted people who wouldn’t usually be involved with the gym and adds variety to our role as well.

“We’ve had some great success stories. One prisoner joined in having never run or used the gym. He started as a tail-walker taking 45 minutes to complete the course. By the time he was released, he’d done over 100 parkruns and was running it in 21 minutes. He’s 57 years old and is still doing parkrun, so I’m delighted.

“Being a Physical Education Instructor is a great career option available to all prison officers and you get to help people like this person – you can make a big difference to people’s lives.”

Around 200,000 people take part in a parkrun across the UK every week, with HMP Haverigg in Cumbria holding the first event in a prison in 2017. As well as the PEIs, other staff from across each prison are able to run where possible, offering a welcome change from their routine.

Instead of scanning runners’ barcodes with a smartphone like most park runs, prison times are recorded with a stopwatch and manually uploaded. Prisoners do run under a pseudonym.

Parkrun ‘tourists’ - keen runners who try and tick off as many venues as they can - often ask if they can enter a prison parkrun but for obvious reasons they cannot. So completing the full set will be out of reach.

Mark has been a prison officer for 28 years, and a PEI for the last 25. He’s not able to run any longer owing to a health condition, but his fastest ever 5km race time is 15m 01 secs. The fastest parkrun time at HMP Sudbury is currently 18m 57 secs.

Around 150 current prisoners at Sudbury are registered to take part in parkrun. Since the first parkrun there two years ago, almost 1,000 different prisoners have taken part. Mark added:

“Sport and exercise are well known to have benefits for physical and mental well-being. It’s why parkrun is the easiest thing to do – you don’t need any equipment and it’s free.

“I cycle now to keep fit but running gave me a lot – I got to travel and meet different people and competed in foreign countries against other uniformed services.

“It’s a nice thing for prisoners to be able to carry on after release and I know some get their families involved too.”

Former world champion triathlete Chrissie Wellington, who held the world record for the gruelling Ironman race, is Global Head of Health and Wellbeing for parkrun. She says:

“We are hugely proud of the incredible and varied impact of parkrun events on both prisoners and staff across the custodial estate.

“Every parkrun barcode represents a life, and a life changed in a really powerful way, through involvement in something as simple as a free, weekly opportunity to be active.

“The weekly events are unifying and humanising, and a positive force for good. Our aim is to maximise the impact of the events we have - on those in custody, staff and the wider community - as well as growing the number of events on custodial sites across the UK.”

You do not need qualifications to become a prison officer or to join in a support staff role. HMP Sudbury is looking for caring people with good communication and influencing skills and effective decision-making. To find out more click here.