Andy Aitchison has been making photographs inside the UK’s prisons since 2004, when he was asked by The Big Issue to photograph inside HMP Wandsworth.

As he told Time Out:  “As soon as I got in, the environment fascinated me. The architecture was incredible and the prisoners were just normal people. I went on to one of the wings and there was the usual shouting, but when I got to the radio room it was like a bit of a sanctuary. Once the guys stepped in there, it was a work environment and they became almost different people.”

“I went 10 or 15 times over a six-month period. I started meeting guys the same age as me, who had a kid like me – they were in the same situation in life as me, but they were in prison and I wasn’t.”

Since that first assignment Andy has photographed in nearly 50 prisons, often making repeat visits as he works on long-term projects. His work has been used extensively by charities, been published both nationally and internationally, and he regularly contributes to Inside Time - the UK’s leading prison newspaper.

The images in Incarcerated are all taken from inside the UK’s Victorian-era prisons. Ninety prisons were opened or significantly expanded between 1842 and 1877 – and over 30 remain in use today, collectively holding around a quarter of the UK’s prison population.

The photographs are part of ongoing research on the long afterlives of Britain’s Victorian prison estate by geographers, criminologists and historians – and their writings are presented in conversation with the images in Incarcerated.

The research project is a collaboration between Professor Dominique Moran and Professor Matt Houlbrook from the University of Birmingham, Professor Yvonne Jewkes from the University of Bath, and Professor Jennifer Turner from Trier University, Germany.