Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway sign a letter against the prison guitar ban

Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway have signed an open letter in today's Guardian against the ban on prisoners having steel-strung guitars, addressed to the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling.

Billy Bragg organised it. He set up Jail Guitar Doors in 2007 to get instruments to prisoners as part of their rehabilitation. The other signatories include David Gilmour, Johnny Marr, Guy Garvey and Richard Hawley.

The ban came in last autumn with the government's changes to prisoners' incentives and earned privileges, which also restricted books. Nylon strings are still allowed, but the musicians say they are no substitute on a steel-strung acoustic, the guitar most prisoners have, because the two kinds of string are attached differently. Access used to be left to each prison's staff. With their guitars kept under lock and key until a supervised session, the letter argues, prisoners cannot practise between group sessions, and the music loses its value. We believe music has an important role to play in engaging prisoners in the process of rehabilitation.¹

The letter asks why steel strings were singled out. Bragg told NME he knew of no case in a British prison of anyone being attacked with a steel-strung guitar. The letter also asks Grayling to look into the rise in self-inflicted deaths in prisons since the changes, which the letter puts at 50 since October 2013, more than double the same period a year earlier.

The Labour MP Kevin Brennan has heard from prisoners who saved their prison wages to buy guitars that are now banned, and says he will raise the questions in Parliament this week. The prisons minister has admitted that learning the guitar is good for rehabilitation, so why he would want to undermine rehabilitation by this arbitrary policy on guitar strings is baffling.¹