Frances Crook

Frances Crook OBE (born 1952) is the former Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, the oldest penal reform charity in the United Kingdom. Early life and career Frances Crook grew up in London, her father was Jewish and had a successful business selling 'home movies and comedy films' She graduated in history from Liverpool University, and subsequently qualified as a teacher, working in secondary schools in Liverpool and London until 1980. Having grown up with a strong sense of social justice, she was the campaigns co-coordinator at the British Section of Amnesty International from 1980 to 1985, and was twice elected as a Labour Councillor for East Finchley in the London Borough of Barnet, serving from 1982 to 1990, leading on housing and planning and holding weekly surgeries. The Howard League for Penal Reform Appointed in 1986, she was responsible for the Howard League's research programmes and campaigns to raise public concern about issues including suicides in prison, the over-use of custody, poor carceral conditions, young people in trouble and mothers in prison. Under her direction the number of staff and turnover of the charity grew twenty-fold. She described this work as her 'life’s mission'. and joked that she suffers from nominative determinism as her name literally means “free the criminals”.