'I can tell in the reading of your letters you are very articulate and very fun to be around. I'm a bit intimidated with the idea of knowing you, in the sense that you might grow tired of me…why would you waste your time on someone like me? Who doesn't have a high school diploma, doesn't have any money or family and is on death row? Tell me truthfully, what kind of person would want to know someone like that?'
Letter excerpt from 'Welcome to Hell: Letters & Writings from Death Row' 

Jan ArriensJan Arriens is the founder of 'Life Lines', a pen pal matching organisation that encourages people to write letters to prisoners on Death Row. Despite professing to be a 'pretty bad' correspondent himself, Arriens' organisation now has over 1,400 members offering support and friendship to prisoners through the exchange of letters.

On 10 February he spoke at a Greencoat Forum at the London Centre for Initiatives of Change about how the organisation started, the unique capacity letter writing seems to have in forging the unlikeliest – and strongest - of friendships and also shared some of most humbling moments of his own long-standing correspondence with Death Row prisoners.  

One evening at home in November 1987 Arriens, idly channel hopping, stopped on a BBC television documentary following a prisoner's last days on Death Row. 'Back then Death Row was as unfamiliar to me as it probably is to you,' said Arriens. 'I'd already decided earlier that day I'd skip the documentary as it sounded too depressing but, once I'd started watching, I was gripped.'  

It was a fateful decision. The documentary, '14 days in May', filmed a young prisoner, Edward Earl Johnson, on Death Row in Mississippi in the two weeks leading up to his execution. 'The prisoners, the guards - no one seemed to want this gentle, guileless young man to die. Yet the state machinery rolled inexorably on and the drawn out, calculated process of his execution reduced me to tears.  

'Afterwards, I was left with this impotent anguish. The film spoke to me so powerfully that I decided to write letters to the other three prisoners featured in the documentary.' When all three wrote back with heartfelt, articulate replies, the seeds for 'Life Lines' were sown.  

'I was struck by how eloquent and moving those first letters were. I thought, 'here are three articulate, feeling people displaying real humanity.' To think that these living, thinking men were to be executed by the state was beyond my powers of comprehension.'  

The fate of those first three correspondents could be considered a fair reflection of death row prisoners: Leo Edwards was executed 18 months later after eight years spent on Death Row; Sam Johnson had his sentenced overturned after 11 years on the Row but later died in prison; John Irving came off Death Row after almost 31 years.

According to Arriens, 'spending decades on death row isn't some insane extreme - a significant number will spend longer awaiting their death than many UK prisoners spend serving a life sentence.' The average length of time on Death Row is around six years.  

A significant number will eventually have had their sentences overturned completely while many more are simply left waiting.  

'These prisoners are human beings on Death Row. Not monsters. Sam Johnson proved a particularly amazing correspondent and I went out to see him a year later.' It is an 'unimaginable existence.' Prisoners live in concrete and steel cells 6ft by 9ft with minimal human interaction. 'Here are people who are left for years in the most intense isolation and yet the least mentally equipped to manage it.'  

'We soon discovered there was a kind of 'identikit' picture of people that ended up on Death Row. They are overwhelmingly black men from deprived backgrounds whose education has been cut short. They have had drugs or alcohol problems and something like 90 per cent will have suffered physical or sexual abuse in childhood.' It's a depressing picture of society's failings. 'What struck us most was just how easy it is to end up on Death Row. Being poor, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, having a State attorney that turns up drunk to your hearing – people's lives hang by a slender thread.'  

'While in the States, I attended a clemency hearing – a “last chance” hearing where Death Row prisoners beg for their lives before a panel which then assess whether to accept the plea of clemency. In this case, the prisoner's sister stood up to speak on his behalf. She could only manage a couple of words before breaking down. The pressure and torment she must have been under was unimaginable.'  

Later, Arriens was introduced as the founder of 'Life Lines' to the prisoner himself, Antonio James. 'I was reluctant to bother him at such a stressful time but the moment he heard where I was from his face lit up: “The two women who have been writing to me from Britain? They have been the best thing in my life.''’  

From a fledgling group of writers, 'Life Lines' has grown into a carefully organised operation with co-ordinators responsible for different states. It means all new prisoners are offered a pen pal and, if wanted, they are matched with willing writers, mainly from the UK.  

The letter-writing process can quickly forge a powerful friendship but, when prisoners are overwhelmingly men and volunteers overwhelmingly women, correspondents on both sides can sometimes want more. 'Life Lines' offers advice on how to manage the intense relationship that can ensue and how writers can communicate from the outset the romance-free nature of the support they are offering.  

'A poor, black man from the deep South may never have spoken to an educated white woman before, let alone received detailed, personal letters.' It's often a completely new experience for both correspondents which can take time to get used to.  

But it's not only prisoners who benefit. 'It seems counter-intuitive that corresponding with someone in such a confined space living such a physically 'narrow' life can broaden your world,' says Arriens. 'But that's what so many writers say and I know it from my own experiences. My current pen pal, Michael Lambrix in Florida, is hugely interested in quantum physics and has written asking about my thoughts on string theory. I've had to do a bit of research on it just so I can write back!'  

Not all prisoners are as intellectually curious. 'Some prisoners are hard and unreachable and don't want to write at all.' But plenty more actively request a pen pal and there are now more prisoners in need than willing pen pals.   Arriens ended the forum by reading aloud excerpts from his book, Welcome to Hell – a moving and inspiring collection of letters from prisoners and their pen pals:  

'Yesterday was the sixth year anniversary of being arrested. Think back for a minute to where you were six years ago as you read this letter – where were you and what was your life then? Now try to think how much life has gone by for you from then until now, how much life you've lived…'
Letter excerpt from 'Welcome to Hell: Letters & Writings from Death Row'

More information about 'Life Lines' and how to become a member

You can view clips of this forum on YouTube