Brenda Birungi, AKA Lady Unchained, has used her experience of the criminal justice system to bring hope to young offenders in Kent through poetry, writes Marijke Hall

“You’ve got to run, the police are coming!”

Brenda Birungi – these days better known as celebrated poet Lady Unchained (@lady_unchained) – stays put. Only guilty people run.

The 20-year-old, about to launch her own business and with a clean sheet, isn’t the type to get arrested, let alone go to prison.

But more than a decade on from that life-changing moment, looking back at her naive younger self, she tells us: “Anyone can end up in jail.”

And she did. Eleven months inside and five on tag after being sentenced to two and half years for GBH with intent for a fight at a nightclub.

That incident in 2008 set her path for the next 13 years, seeing Brenda navigate the difficulties of being an ex-con to become Lady Unchained, a force for good, determined to change the future of those destined for a life in and out of prison.

Founding Unchained Poetry, a platform for artists with experience of the criminal justice system, her mission is to prove there is life after jail.

Most recently, the poet, mentor and broadcaster has undertaken a project with Theatre31 at HMP Cookham Wood in Rochester, working with young offenders and using the art of the spoken word to help transform their lives.

It’s been quite a journey to this point for Lady Unchained, though, who has faced her own battles and barriers after being convicted in 2009.

She admits it was something she’d never imagined would happen to her, but when she got into a fight trying to protect her sister in a London nightclub, all that changed.

“People were like ‘you’ve got to run’, but I wasn’t guilty. I could explain this, I was defending my sister from being attacked by three women,” she recalls.

“But the police turned up and explained they’d have to arrest me for GBH and I was like ‘What? People go to prison for that?’.”

She was put on bail for a year and she admits it was a period that broke her.

“It was such a sad time – literally weeks before this happened, I had completed my training to become a childminder, to run my own business.

“And then I was bailed and I became a lost soul. It really did break me – it broke my spirit, it broke who I was. I was angry and I had no faith in the system anymore.”

On February 9, 2009, Brenda, then 21, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and sent to HMP Holloway, at the time the largest women’s prison in the country.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve had to deal with and I’ve dealt with a lot of things.

“I usually keep smiling, but I didn’t know how to smile or shine in the prison setting because it was uncommon to me.

“I remember a lady being really kind and saying I needed to eat something.

“For me, I thought there was no kindness in jail. Kindness came at a cost, that’s what I believed.

“But actually it’s a place where women look after women because every single one has had some kind of issue, whether it’s similar to yours or not.”

It was here in Holloway that she quickly learned she didn’t have the voice she had on the outside and that standing up for herself could land her in trouble.

So to avoid conflict she would write little notes.

“Doing this would let me get my emotions out. Or if I was feeling uncomfortable about another inmate, or an officer was treating me badly, I’d write it all down.

“It wasn’t poetry at that time.”

Yet those words now form the basis of her poems as Lady Unchained.

She says her journey through the criminal justice system, like many others, wasn’t an easy one.

For almost three months, after finding her feet at Holloway, she was shipped to a prison for foreign nationals and threatened with deportation to Uganda, despite being British.

Going on hunger strike and refusing to unpack, she spent her time there desperately fighting to remain in the UK, where her family live.

Finally, underweight and mentally exhausted, she was moved to Downview Prison, where she saw out the rest of her time.

And here the writing continued.

“In jail if someone doesn’t get what they want they will take it out on other people. If you react, it can get you in trouble and it could lead to another sentence.

“In that prison I had one issue with an inmate who wanted to fight me for my earrings – everything in prison is a fight.

“So instead of reacting, I’d write about that.

“It was a really big issue to the point where she would get people to stop giving me more food.

“So I had to really use my writing moments to get that out, so that when I was going to the servery and this girl was shouting all these things at me or walking through the prison yard and pointing, I didn’t react.

“I had to walk away, I couldn’t do another sentence.”

And she didn’t, but on leaving prison there were moments it was a possibility.

Released into a world she no longer knew, with a criminal record and trying to find her place in a society that turned its back on ex-prisoners, it was a harsh new reality.

She volunteered, working with youths with challenging backgrounds, but at just 22 soon realised she needed to take the advice she was giving.

Then, hit by a series of tragedies in which she lost two best friends and was rejected for a job due to an admin error, she admits she “lost her mind” and was arrested twice again.

“Believe me, no one enjoys prison,” she says. “When I was there, I didn’t understand why women were being released and then coming back within days. I really questioned why they didn’t want to be outside.

“I only found out once I was out how difficult it is after jail to maintain life after prison and why it’s so back and forth – it’s a revolving door.”

She recalls knowing she wanted to set up a mentoring programme using her poetry to help ex-prisoners.

Creating a business plan to apply for funding, she narrowly missed out with a bid, but in her hands she now held the proposals to develop Unchained Poetry.

“All I wanted it to be was a platform for people who have lived in the criminal justice system to tell their story.

“I wanted to meet other ex-offenders who didn’t want to go back to jail. But you’re told this doesn’t happen, prisoners don’t stay out of prison.”

Starting as a small collaboration, she pushed her project forward and was invited to a conference by National Prison Radio to perform some of her poetry.

Creative company Artsadmin then got involved and became the home of Unchained Nights, poetry performances by artists who have been to jail.

From there, Brenda became a main host for National Prison Radio – winning an Arias award for her show Free Flow this year – and held a TED talk entitled ‘proving there is life after prison, one poem at a time’.

She has appeared on BBC Radio 4 and there is also a documentary film entitled Buddleia: The Unchained Story in which Brenda tells of her experiences.

All this has led to where she is now – back behind bars but not as she was before.

Instead, in a project co-commissioned by Theatre31 and Cookham Wood Institute and supported by Medway Council, she has held workshops in the young offender institution to help inmates aged between 15 and 18 use the spoken word to change their lives.

Called Unchained Tribe Leaders, Brenda says it was all about helping them understand how they can become leaders in their lives.

“And then I was bailed and I became a lost soul. It really did break me – it broke my spirit, it broke who I was. I was angry and I had no faith in the system anymore”

— Lady Unchained

“Unfortunately, all we hear is these young people have done this or that – no one talks about what happened to this young person before they went to jail.

“They are so used to hearing no.

“But I believe that behind every no is a yes. But to get that yes, you need to become the yes for yourself so others believe in you, too.

“The project was about having a conversation with them that leads to creativity and something powerful – to them telling a story they were never allowed to tell and do so in a positive and creative way.

“Maybe they enjoy rap, maybe poetry. It’s teaching them how to craft it and tell their story without glorifying it.

“Unfortunately, we live in a world where music is great, but some music is all about telling people ‘I’m a bad man’ and about all the crimes they committed.

“All that’s doing is telling young people it’s OK to act like that and you might end up in jail but don’t worry as prison is nothing – and that’s a lie. It’s a hard, lonely place.”

INFO: unchainedpoetry.com