Michael Amherst is a Director of Just Detention International, an international organisation campaigning against sexual violence in prisons. Michael Amherst is also the Chief Executive of the charity Avonbrook Projects Abroad and a Trustee of the literary journal The White Review. Michael Amherst is a writer of both short stories and novels.

Deborah Cowley is the Director of Action for Prisoners’ Families. Action for Prisoners' Families works for the benefit of prisoners’ families by representing the views of families and those who work with them and promoting and supporting good practice. Deborah Cowley worked in parenting support for many years including work as Director of Operations at Parenting UK, an umbrella organisation for agencies and individuals working with parents. She is a member of the Children's Rights Alliance for England Council of Management and is a Trustee of Family Links which delivers training to support parents and children’s emotional health and wellbeing.

Frances Crook is the Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Frances Crook has been responsible for research programmes and campaigns to raise public concern about suicides in prison, the over-use of custody, poor conditions in prison, young people in trouble, and mothers in prison. She writes articles for the national media and takes part in interviews on radio and television. She was awarded an OBE for services to youth justice in the 2010 New Year Honours List. She was appointed a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics in 2010.

Chris Sheffield is the Chair of the Commission on Sex in Prison. Chris Sheffield is a senior advisor to Salford University Centre for Prison Studies. Chris Sheffield joined the Prison Service in 1980 and has over a decade of governing governor experience. His last prison was Manchester, which was awarded ‘high performing prison status’ for two successive years during his tenure. He was awarded his OBE in 2008 for his long and distinguished career in the Prison Service.

Dr Peter Carter is Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, the world’s largest professional union of nurses. Before assuming the post in 2007, Peter Carter spent almost twelve years as the Chief Executive of the Central and North West London Mental Health NHS Trust. In addition, he has held a number of clinical and managerial posts in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and London. Peter Carter is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel. He was awarded his OBE for services to the NHS in the 2006 New Year’s Honours.

Prof Neil Chakraborti is Professor of Criminology at the University of Leicester. He has published widely on issues of hate crime, victimisation and diversity. Neil Chakraborti sits on the editorial board of the British Journal of Criminology. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Howard League for Penal Reform, having previously been a member of their Research Advisory Group. He is the lead organiser of the Partnership Against Targeted Hate, a knowledge exchange partnership between the University of Leicester and regional criminal justice organisations.

Sir Edward Garnier QC is MP for Harborough. He was called to the Bar in 1976 and practises as a defamation and media law specialist. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1995, a Crown Court Recorder in 1998 and a Bencher of the Middle Temple in 2001. He was a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee and has served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to the Attorney General and Solicitor General, and to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1997 he was appointed Shadow Minister, Lord Chancellor's Department and became Shadow Attorney General in 1999. He has served as Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Shadow Minister for Justice and Shadow Attorney General. In May 2010 he was appointed HM Solicitor General.

Roger Ingham is Professor of Health and Community Psychology at the University of Southampton, and Director of the Centre for Sexual Health Research. The Centre carries out research in the field of sexual conduct in the UK and in other countries. Professor Ingham has worked in this area for twenty five years and has published widely on relevant topics and worked closely with policy makers. He has been a consultant for the World Health Organisation for many years on their reproductive health and AIDS programmes. He was a member of the Independent Advisory Group for the Teenage Pregnancy Unit and involved in the development of the UK National Sexual Health and HIV Strategy.

Fiona Magtaggart is the Labour MP for Slough. She was the founder of the All-Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade, and is joint secretary of the All-Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking. During the 1997-2010 Labour Government, Fiona served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Chris Smith and as a Home Office Minister between June 2003 and May 2006. She has served as a member of the House of Commons Health Select Committee

Eoin McLennan-Murray has been the President of the Prison Governors’ Association since 2010. Eoin McLennan-Murray has served in ten prison establishments. He has twice been governing governor, at Lewes prison and Blantyre House, and has spent four years in Prison Service Headquarters where he was Staff Officer to the Director General and then the manager responsible for development and national roll out of the accredited cognitive skills and sex offender programmes. When McLennan-Murray was governor of HMP Blantyre House, a resettlement prison in Kent, the establishment had the lowest reconviction rates of any prison in the United Kingdom and elements of the pioneering work on resettlement have now been replicated in many other prisons.

Jo Phoenix is Professor of Criminology in the Department of Criminology at the University of Leicester. Professor Phoenix has worked in the area of gender, sex and its regulation for the last decade. She has published extensively on policy and policy reform in relation to prostitution and childhood sexual exploitation. She has also worked in the area of youth justice in relation to risk and need assessment and the punishment of young people.

Pamela Taylor is professor of Forensic Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, and advisor on forensic psychiatry to the Chief Medical Officer to the Welsh Assembly Government. She is a trustee of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Pamela Taylor is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She is an elected member of RCPsych Forensic Psychiatry Faculty Executive. She has published widely, mainly on the relationship between psychosis and violence and long term outcomes for offender patients. Books include Forensic Psychiatry (second edition, with John Gunn, 2014) and Couples in Care and Custody (with Tom Swan, 1999).

Sue Wade is the Chair of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Sue Wade is a former Deputy Chief Probation Officer and Youth Justice Manager in Hampshire. Sue currently works as a consultant for various criminal justice organisations and charities. She is a performance advisor for Hampshire Police Authority. Sue has been a member of the Howard League since 1989. She has directed reform projects in young offender prisons and court systems in the US and Syria, and has been the Howard League’s representative at UN Crime Commission meetings, specialising in advice on implementation of international norms and standards.