Sally Jameson: meet the former prison officer who is now the MP for Doncaster Central
“It was probably one of the best moves I’ve ever made in my life to be honest,” the new Doncaster Central MP Sally Jameson tells me, recalling getting her job at the prison service in 2018.
She had worked for the Labour Party for two years, but wanted a change.
After moving back to her hometown of Doncaster in 2018, she got a job as an officer at HMP Moorland - a men’s category C prison near Hatfield Woodhouse.
Now, six years on, she’s the new MP for Doncaster Central and a parliamentary private secretary in the Ministry of Justice.
But Sally says that “taking that leap” to become a prison officer was a key part of her journey.
“I always wanted to be in a uniformed service,” she tells me.
“I also wanted to be somewhere I could be part of changing things and rehabilitating prisoners.”
Sally said she felt it was important that women were represented in the prisons service, as well as the police and fire brigade.
“A lot of people were surprised when I said I was a prison officer, because they couldn’t imagine me in that environment,” she says.
“But actually, I like to think I flourished in that environment.
“It’s the kind of job where you challenge yourself and put yourself in situations where you’d never envisage yourself being, sometimes that can be quite dangerous.
“It gave me a whole new perspective on myself and on the criminal justice system.”
In July 2022, Dame Rosie Winterton, who had represented the constituency since 1997, announced she was standing down, and Sally decided “that was the moment to put my hat in the ring”.
“You see how things work on the frontline and you see the change you might want to make,” she explains.
“I thought it was my real opportunity to be part of that and part of a government that could do the things that a lot of people want to see.”