Ursula Smartt Author

Ursula Smartt was raised in her native Germany but has spent all her adult life in the United Kingdom. After graduating from university in Hull with a degree in English Literature, her career has included work in BBC local radio, teaching in secondary schools - both state and public - in Yorkshire, Scotland and Surrey, and a brief period working in personnel with a top London hotel. She has postgraduate qualifications in German Politics, Law, Criminology and Hotel Management. A visit to HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs in 1993 sparked aninterest in prisons and she embarked on doctoral research, comparing German and English conditions for untried male prisoners. Since then, utilising her multi-lingual skills, she has undertaken extensive comparative research for HM Prison Service in Europe, and also in the USA. Her writings have focused on prison regimes including 'Prison Industries in England and Wales' (2000);'Constitutionalism in the British Overseas Territories' (1999) and 'The House of Correction in Bruchsal: A Copy of Pentonville Prison' (1999). An exhibition of her prison photographs 'Images of Incarceration', was opened by His Honour Sir Stephen Tumim, former Chief Inspector of Prisons, in January 1999 and further extensive photographic work, depicting international prison architecture andprison regimes from around the world, has toured public exhibition sites. It includes a study of the mother and child unit in Tihar Jail, New Delhi, India. Ursula Smartt is married to Mike, a BBC Journalist. They live in Surrey. She enjoys a wealth of sporting activities and plays the piano enthusiastically, when time allows.