The curator said she had to bring in extra resources to trawl through the "huge data set" and over nine months she and 17 other archivists analysed and then chose 37 prisoner stories to focus on.

She said the archivists were struck by different prisoners. For some they engaged with those from migrant backgrounds, for others they were drawn to incarcerated people who had faced a really tough life.

"One of the things for me that has been particularly affecting … is the number of boys that were convicted of offences and incarcerated in adult prisons," Dr Stannard said.

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