This is my submission to the High Level Taskforce to consider the mental health and addiction challenges of persons interacting with the criminal justice system in Ireland on "Towards a neurodevelopmentally aware, trauma-responsive penal policy and practice". It draws from my PhD, trauma trainings and interviews with various trauma, neuroscience and mental health experts for my Law and Justice series on “How to talk policy and influence people” and “Relationships Matter”. It is lengthy in order to give the members of the High Level Taskforce the full benefit of learning from the 12 long sentence male prisoners whom I had the pleasure of interviewing for my PhD research, as well as my carefully considered recommendations on prison rehabilitation, personal development, relationship building, sentence planning, reentry management, post-release support and urgent trauma training for all those working in the criminal justice system.