Faith

What takes a girl brought up in a genteel part of Berkshire to some of the harshest prisons in America and back again?

Shauneen Lambe was born and brought up in Ascot, but she tells BBC Berkshire that as far as she's concerned, a person's background and up-bringing shouldn't be a factor in determining their path in life.

"I don't think it matters where you start off. You get moved by things and think you just have to go and see for yourself what's going on.

"The Death Penalty is the ultimate penalty, we don't have it in this country and it seemed to me that people such as lawyers or people with a lot of experience and qualifications could use them best effectively in situations like that.

Shauneen and Ryan Matthews - free from Death Row

"I was moved so much by the work I did in Louisiana. I had no idea about the United States at the time. I'd seen films and TV programmes obviously but parts of the US are very different to that and much like a third world country. Some of the racism I experienced in Louisiana was extraordinary.

"There was still the death penalty for under 18's when I was there, so I was working with children on death-row."

During her time in the US Shauneen dealt with many experiences that had a big impact on her.

"A lot of the cases were murders. I worked on one case with a boy called Ryan who was totally innocent, yet was still convicted and sentenced to death and only got off five years later.

"A man came into a shop wearing a balaclava, tried to take the money and when a fight ensued the shop-keeper got shot, the man then fled and jumped through the window of a car, where his friend was waiting and they drove off and Ryan was accused of murdering the shop-keeper.

"Someone had identified Ryan as the person who had committed the crime. They had allegedly seen him three hours later in a similar car that was about five or six miles away from the scene. They even managed to find the balaclava which had the robber's DNA on it and that didn't match Ryan's.

Shauneen admits that while at heart she's a Christian she's not active in the church and that her core beliefs of the need to right wrongs and fight injustice are based on how she was brought up by a child.

She chose to study religion at Edinburgh as she was interested in what's right and what's wrong and thought she could only learn more about herself by doing such a course.

"Whilst I'm not Christian in the sense of faith, there is, in Jesus, a moral code that I approve of.

"I work with kids every day; their lives are so different from the lives that we lead. I think in this country we often forget that there is extreme poverty.

"For example it is very hard for some people to get jobs; it's not simply that they don't want to work. In urban areas there is such depravation and some people do slip through the net.

"Also, people aren't spoken to as equals and that really makes a big difference. A lot of the kids that I work with are really articulate about the problems in their lives, some of them are treated with such disrespect, by, for example the police, that we as adults and those in authority have a responsibility to teach people how to be respectful.

"It's about being respectful to them not enforcing respect upon them.

"It just seems to me that if you treat someone with kindness they will treat you with kindness back. It's self-perpetuating.

Join Clare Catford on BBC Radio Berkshire to hear more local people discussing their life and their faith every Sunday morning from 6am - 9am.