And You Visited Me

When Penny Wheat found an old book about the convicted killer James Hanratty, and learned that his conviction might have been unsafe, something awoke in her: a lifelong concern for those in prison. Recently converted, but trapped in a miserable marriage, she started to write and visit first one prisoner, then a second. Then a television programme prompted her to contact Lifelines, an organisation which sets up links to men and women on Death Row - and a letter arrived from a prisoner in Tennessee. Penny paid the first of many visits to the States in October 1993. As she learned more about the American system of justice: sometimes excellent, sometimes arbitrary and prejudiced, her compassion deepened for those, mainly black, prisoners caught in it.