Prisonomics

by Pryce, Vicky

  Edwina has seen during the eight-month training process how employees have grown in confidence and alertness, are able to interact with the customers and work as a team. She also mentioned to me that in her view there are also a number of unintended beneficial consequences; interaction between the offenders and the community helps to avoid future reoffending. And she believes that it also leads to a culture change among the prison officers; at first hostile, they come to see the benefits of the business when reflected in the better behaviour of inmates. The Clink’s review of its activities shows that among its graduates there is a recidivism rate of just 12.4 per cent as against the average 47 per cent for all offenders,109 and the charity is planning more restaurants, the next one hopefully in Brixton. I will have to go and try it for myself when it finally opens.

  CHAPTER 5

  PREPARING FOR THE EXIT

  27 APRIL

  I am clearly losing it. It must be because the day of my release on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) is approaching.

  After returning from my shower to an empty dorm I realised to my horror I couldn’t find my glasses anywhere. Not being able to see much, I frantically fumbled around with my hands but found nothing. Fortunately Sarah came back from her morning cigarette and instantly took pity on me, and we spent the next half an hour looking desperately under the bed and all around it for my lost glasses. Quite frankly, under my bed is rather a mess and Sarah told me off for having too much down there. It’s true: I have been using the area underneath my bed as a makeshift filing cabinet, using plastic baskets – two big ones, one small one. There were often periodic searches by the staff to ensure no one had pinched anyone else’s basket or taken any of the spare ones. Mine were not used for clothes but for my papers, notebooks, diaries and letters. One big basket held letters I hadn’t answered and the smaller one, to my shame, contained those I had answered (I must do better). The other big basket held magazines and newspaper cuttings, and any other material I was beginning to hoard: notices from the officers, general applications (the famous ‘apps’), approval notices for past and forthcoming visits, pens, post-its, pins and paperclips, as well as the various magazines and books I was trying to read all at the same time.

  Defeated, Sarah insisted I had to have a clear out. Breakfast was nearing and I was soon to miss my morning orange juice if I didn’t find my glasses. Entering the dorm with disbelief at the sight of Sarah and me on our knees, having taken all of the contents of my ‘office’ out from under the bed and scattered them across the room, Amy asked us if we’d tried moving the bed. We hadn’t… As soon as we did, we heard the glasses clatter to the floor; they had been entangled in my bedding the whole time.

  28 APRIL

  My great friend George Houpis came to visit today and brought my daughter with him, who wasn’t able to come the following weekend, her birthday, because she was due to be rehearsing for a play on that day. We were lucky to have such brilliant weather as it had rained much of the weekend. My daughter looked gorgeous. It was so nice to sit outside in the glorious weather and have a long chat about everything. Aanjay, who tried to work continuously, had volunteered for visitors’ duty again and was moving around serving and collecting cups and I introduced her to my little group. The time was nearing for me to return home and they were all looking forward to having me back, so the usual post-visit separation was much more bearable than usual.

  29 APRIL

  We said goodbye to Anya today and her two sisters came to collect her. Having stopped wearing her hijab in prison to avoid being singled out, she was back wearing it again, though we saw her sisters didn’t.

  Anya had spent one night in the room I shared with Amy and Sarah. She had arrived looking quite disoriented and missing the closed prison, where she had been on a short sentence like me. She was serving two months of an eight-month sentence (assuming HDC came through) for benefit fraud but did not like sharing or being out of a closed environment. She also told us she had heard that Indian and Pakistani women in ESP were picked upon by the guards. She was scared and had no idea what to expect.

  We tried to reassure her and told her not to listen to rumour or gossip and she calmed down a bit. She then announced that she had to get up at sunrise to pray – the multi-faith room was next door to us but Amy, Sarah and I had difficulty adjusting to the idea that we would be woken up at 4.30 from then on. Fortunately, for us, she forgot to set her alarm the next morning – hurray! As we wondered how we were going to cope with the early mornings if her alarm worked from then on, she decided to ask to move with some other girls she knew from before. ‘We will miss you,’ we said, and we would; she had already become a good friend. But the idea of an extra uninterrupted hour in the morning was too good to miss. We eagerly helped her carry her stuff over to her new room.

  30 APRIL

  Jacquie, who was finishing a sentence for dangerous driving, having caused the deaths of two people, sought me out as I was queuing for roll call this evening, to ask my advice on a personal matter. Her boyfriend was also in prison and his previous partner would not bring his son to see him, even though he was convinced that the boy missed him terribly. He would ring the boy’s mother, who he believed was on drugs, and could hear his son begging to be allowed to talk to him but she wouldn’t put him through. He was getting desperate.

  It is clear that a large percentage of men also want to ensure they keep in touch with their kids and I wondered how it was that he was not getting the right advice from the prison service. All I could suggest was for Jacquie to somehow contact an organisation that helped to try and keep families connected, particularly fathers. There was genuine concern in Jacquie’s voice which conveyed well the helplessness her male friend obviously felt stuck inside and unable to control events or prevent the probability, if the stats are to be believed, that his son would end up a troubled young man himself because of this separation.

  1 MAY

  In a meeting with Dee, my probation officer, she told me that the checks to my house have been completed and my daughter has said that she is happy to have me back. Do I ring and thank her for her kindness? The only other thing remaining is for the social services in Lambeth to find out whether the house address is known for any disturbance or child protection issues. I was fairly sure there was nothing of the sort but who knows what may have occurred before I moved there? Though I knew my worries were unfounded, I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious. I could understand even better now the concerns of many of my fellow residents whose living arrangements were not as straightforward as mine and whose planned departure was often fraught with uncertainty as they often had to move to a different house than the one they had left.

  I had seen girls so worried about whether tag day would be met, concerns from probation about the address they were going to if there had been an incidence of violence – and this was frequently the case as it was common for the girls to have been in an abusive relationship. It was also a problem if the address had been known to the police because of crime committed on the premises – and of course that was also often the case. One girl told me how her brother had hidden a gun in her house unbeknown to her and the police that night raided all the possible addresses where her brother might have been and found the gun. She was sentenced as an accomplice despite the fact she had nothing to do with it. She intended to ‘get him’ when she got out – I hope for her sake she doesn’t but somehow manages to get justice properly after all this time. But all these things cut the chances of being able to return home, assuming you still had one after your conviction.

  In many instances, the girls had been renting their homes and had lost them while in prison; others were struck off the council house lists – in some cases because they were deemed to have made themselves ‘intentionally’ homeless. Painful divorces finalised during prison sentences meant some marital homes were lost during the separation of assets. And in some cases, particularly when the girls were convicted of fraud, court orders meant houses wer
e confiscated to cover the repayments of proceeds gained by the crime committed.

  Many girls, therefore, had nowhere to go. So, there was terrible depression and agony in the weeks just before HDC and in some instances long negotiations with external probation so the girls could clear their return address – often staying with parents or daughters (where were the sons?) or in a hostel, depending on availability, which was the next best thing. It was not surprising, therefore, that in a number of cases the HDC date wasn’t kept.

  Eventually the girls would leave and often practically penniless, despite the £46 allocated to each offender on their release and, depending on circumstances, a small travel and clothing allowance. It is not surprising that according to probation officers some women didn’t want to leave the prison because it was the only time someone took care of them.

  A good case in point is Sharon, who I met in ESP, convicted for fraud, and who came out on HDC about a month before me. She was a jolly girl, very helpful, someone who often performed extra tea and coffee duty during family visits at the weekends. She was clearly well educated. We were all involved in lots of discussions in the drawing room about the problems she was having with an address to go to as probation were not allowing her to go home as there had been one incident reporting domestic violence at her house some fifteen years ago, since when there had not been an incident at all. She seemed to be very fond of her husband but it was finally agreed that, as a condition for her HDC, she would live at her sister’s house, situated quite close to her family home. I remember waving her goodbye and we all missed her and her laughter which was frequent and infectious. We then heard that she had managed to get a job but either probation or the governors had not allowed her to take it because it involved dealing with accounts, which was what her conviction had been related to. That was sad in itself as it makes little sense to prevent someone from doing a job in case they reoffend if someone is prepared to take them on being fully aware of the offence they had committed. But I presume there may have been a reputational issue for ESP if she had committed an offence while still serving her sentence.

  When I enquired after Sharon a couple of weeks after she left ESP, I was shocked to hear that she had been forced to go to a women’s refuge in Southampton. Because she had left her designated address and had no other safe place to replace it and serve her probation period, she was recalled to finish the rest of her sentence in custody and was sent back to a closed prison for eight weeks. It makes no sense. And just goes to show how important housing is for women on their release. The question for Sharon will be what permanent solution can be found given so many housing options are unavailable to her.

  Indeed, work by Nicola Padfield on recalled prisoners based on a survey she conducted in 2011 argued that recall is a costly process to offenders, to their families and to the taxpaying public and there was indeed a belief among the prisoners she interviewed that the certain licence conditions in fact increased the risk of reoffending rather than reducing it. Being recalled and spending more time in prison actually increased the risks of reoffending in the future due to the impact on them and their families.

  2 MAY

  It is getting warmer. I had been wandering around the entire period since I got to East Sutton Park in a ‘uniform’ of T-shirt, polo-neck, another V-neck jumper on top and a blazer on top of that – that is how cold it felt inside the house. For going outside, even for the short distances between buildings, I would often wear a coat, hat and gloves. For me there was no other way with the cold winds hitting the old house and its grounds, standing as they do at the top of a hill with nothing but open space around them. When the sun finally appeared I ditched the coat during the day (but not in the evenings). Multiple jumpers remained. I am, after all, a Mediterranean and feel the cold. When the English see the sun after such a ridiculously cold winter, however, they are straight out in their sleeveless tops lying in the sunshine at the first opportunity. Well, it was no different at East Sutton Park. And I soon discovered that I must be the only resident in East Sutton Park without a tattoo. As the layers came off they were all proudly displaying some wonderful, often wild, often beautifully crafted images and words, and began recommending to me the places where I could go and have one done when I got out – clearly they all thought I was missing out on something. Even my more buttoned-up friends had one, even if it was just their husband’s or boyfriend’s name. When I enquired whether these things come off at some point they all assured me with pride that they were permanent. Where have I lived all this time?

  I remained resolutely tattoo free but also pale faced and shivering. My fellow residents on the other hand started to go pink and some even burned. And then panic ensued; letting yourself burn is apparently tantamount to self-harm and that means you could in theory get penalty points under the IEPS (Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme) and may be grounded. Everyone tried to cover themselves up in the house so the extent of their burns could not be seen by the officers but their red faces gave them away. The women working on the farm and in the gardens were particularly annoyed as they claimed they had no choice but to wear the vests given as standard uniform for working when it is hot. Fortunately it was a false rumour – no one was given an IEP for having sunburn, at least not to my knowledge. Nevertheless sun cream was miraculously found and the women started being a bit more careful. Since my release, the weather has been so hot this summer that I have been trying to visualise how red my fellow residents must now be. I hope they are covering up but somehow doubt it. They are nothing if not risk takers…

  There is, though, a serious side to this. Women are seen as an easy target for disciplinary procedures. A recently retired senior probation officer told me how she was amazed at the waste of money involved in disciplinary procedures when it was common to see women being put ‘on report’ for things like ‘talking in church’. In her view that would never happen in a male prison, where attempts to do so would probably result in a revolt. Women just accept it and become (even more) depressed and maybe then self-harm. The same former probation officer was sad to see that some of her experiences from back in the 1990s still had resonance with my recent experience. It was yet another example of how slowly institutions change.

  3 MAY

  Last night everyone watched the results of the elections for the twenty-seven English county councils and seven unitary authorities, as well as those in Anglesey. In all, about 2,300 seats were being fought and there was a lot of discussion in our room about the fact that UKIP won over 140 of the seats, averaging some 25 per cent of the vote in the wards where it was standing. The issue for most of the women there was not the attitude towards Europe but whether this would force a toughening up of immigration rules – there were foreign girls in ESP who had served a long time, were just about to start rehabilitating themselves and getting jobs on the outside but their main fear was that they might just get shipped back to their home country on release, which they didn’t want. It didn’t look like anyone was giving them the type of information and support that would help them plan ahead and ease these concerns.

  There was much less discussion and concern about voting rights for prisoners, which surprised me as there had been quite a lot of publicity about these issues. The law in the UK at the moment says that only prisoners on remand are entitled to vote, although the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2005 that a blanket ban for convicted prisoners was unlawful. Since then, whether or not the UK should ignore the court’s ruling has been the subject of much heated debate in Parliament. The delay attracted criticism from the Council of Europe in December 2012, who formally reminded the UK government of its obligation to implement the court’s decisions and asked the UK to continue its role as a leader in protecting human rights. Frankly a lot of that debate had passed most of the women by. But it remained a live issue throughout my time in ESP and following release. Indeed six weeks later, when I was released on a tag and at home watching TV, it was reported that Nick Gibb, t
he Conservative chair of the Draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill, had said that Parliament will never back votes for all prisoners, despite the court’s ruling.

  There are three options for Parliament to consider: allowing convicted prisoners serving up to six months to vote, extending it to all serving up to four years, or keeping the blanket ban as is. Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, has been quoted as saying that the only prisoners who shouldn’t be allowed to vote are those who have been convicted for electoral fraud but also said that in reality there wasn’t very much evidence of prisoners really wanting to vote. That very much agreed with my own observation but I fear this was more that they felt removed from society and that they didn’t really belong. I agree with Juliet Lyon’s other comment that in fact just taking that right away further separated the prisoners from society and made reintegration more difficult.110 Indeed, there seems to be wider acceptance of this point and during the debates on the issue the Lib Dem MP Lorely Burt, a former prison governor herself, said that the right to vote ought to be linked to rehabilitation.111 Interestingly Dr Peter Selby, former Bishop to HM Prisons and now president of the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards for Prisons, said in written evidence submitted to the political and constitutional reform committee that ‘denying convicted prisoners the right to vote serves no purpose of deterrence or reform. What it does is to state in the clearest terms society’s belief that once convicted you are a non-person, one who should have no say in how our society is to develop, whose opinion is to count for nothing. It is making someone an “outlaw”, and as such has no place in expressing a civilised attitude towards those in prison.’112