When I arrived into prison, I was a quivering wreck, shell-shock doesn't quite cover it and regardless of my naivety of hope in thinking I may not be sent to prison; there is nothing that can prepare you for what that process is, how it feels, what it looks like and the lasting impact it has on you.
I was 34 when I was sent to prison. An adult. A woman of the world who had lived and felt every second of it, the good, bad and ugly. The trauma, the trials and tribulations both mine and the consequences of my actions.
The first time I got in trouble, the probation officer who met me at court said "bloody hell love, it's a wonder you're still with us," - he had listened to a tale of woe of a 20 something year old girl who had lived a life most would have ended by now, and that's what he meant.
I laughed awkwardly and replied "not for lack of trying eh?"
Cringe.
Sad.
True.
It hurts the ones I love to read what I write sometimes as they feel my pain and feel helpless in the moment knowing it was almost over.
Twice in prison, it came within minutes of the end.
The first, was night one in my prison cell. Alone. In covid. Freezing in a cell with a broken window on a cold Northern night. The banging of the cracked glass and lead frame in tune and time with the howling of the women on either side of me.
There was blood spatter on my wall, flecks of darkened red, nobody had bothered to clean, and as I came realise in later weeks - that was the norm. Flinching at blood stains fresh or faint, didn't shock anymore.
Naturally, in my moment of woe, I was jealous, who and how had managed to bleed in this place. I had no access to razors, sharps, the best I could hope for was my blue plastic knife which was in a lived and sorry state when handed to me as prisoner number 10000000000 through this estate.
I glanced around my room in manic panic, deranged with grief and anger and self loathing, it's over. It's done. And so am I.
Grasping, gasping at anything that looked like a possibility to end it.
I would list the options I considered but it's a bridge too far for gentle eyes and trauma doused souls and would be a selfish shopping list to put forward. Especially given the reason for this piece of writing.
I like to think of myself as strong. Resilient. Unbreakable. And lord knows, much like that probation officer in 2013, I am. Here I stand in 2024, not a shadow of what once was, not ashamed more than is embedded within me, not broken, not now, not ever. But in a moment, in a cell, alone, not knowing or understanding the system and expecting to serve over 2 years inside, no way to tell my wife I had been sent down, that I'd left her, on a Christmas night alone in our home with no idea of what was ahead.
In that very cell, on another freezing night, a piece of paper slid under my door. I had had limited communication, staffing levels were at an all time low, covid was rampant, there was a standard 3 day wait on any post coming into the prison, and with Christmas within days, it was minimal and quite frankly, the prison didn't give a shit if you got your christmas cards from home or the letters that gave you life. They had better things to do with their time and freedom.
Imagine then my elation at something coming under my door - a letter from home perhaps, an approved application to move off the cell block and into the houses even?
No, a notice of death.
That a young girl had died in the prison.
I remember holding it in my hands and wondering what sort of world we have built where even in prisons, we slip notices of death under doors with no welfare checks, no sadness, no pause for thought, no notification of remembrance or prayer. I'm not religious but it felt like even the god squad should have rallied to reflect and bring the women together.
18.
A vulnerable, mentally ill, young girl. In prison.
Why?
We as a society will read the daily mail with the beautiful pictures of her life and take a moment, a second to say outloud "oh that's sad" and then go about our business - it's not enough.
We are all accountable. For as long as we allow women to go to prison for crimes that are best served in the community and with proper support; be it mental health intervention, addiction recovery - it's on us.
For as long as we pick up the paper and demonise the criminal. For as long as we don't challenge the MP's who crack down on harsher sentences and a government that builds more prisons. For private companies that line their pockets profiteering off the misery of the prison population. For the prisons who fail in their duty of care and then parade with sad faces at inquests full of regret and "learnings"
FUCK YOUR LEARNINGS - you don't learn.
It happens again and again.
You fail us, you fail the men and women in your care time and time again.
And we get a letter under our door to mark the passing of another life.
You don't remember her name unless it's in the press and line of scrutiny.
You don't remember to check on her
You don't remember to ask her if she's ok
You don't do ENOUGH.
I was there when Annalise died, and it was only after the paper slid under the door that I understood what had happened from behind my cell door.
The roar of the prison - in response to an ambulance entering the prison estate and the silence that followed.
You have normalised the death of women in your care and somehow shaped it as our fault and not yours. You have decencitised the women in your prisons to the point that when prisoners talked about a death, it was "just another one,"
Prisoners joked about the hope that another suicide would see the prison shut down for good because surely SURELY it would show the world that some prisons are not fit for purpose.
How many deaths does it take for us to feel it?
How many?
Young girls? Mothers and their babies? Women who scream to be heard but are seen as problematic.
Women who hit the call bell again and again in anger and frustration and cries for help - silenced. Ignored. Labelled - problematic.
When prison officers run bets on whose likely to off themselves and joke about it infront of the women they're supposed to care for.
We're scum to you.
If we die behind bars, all the better. One less crook. One less criminal. One less blight on society and the tax payer. Good riddance.
I recently wrote in an essay submission for university a quote from HG Wells "Crime and bad lives are the measure of a state’s failures and all crime in the end is the crime of the community,"
Never truer words written.
If we don't see the horror in what has happened with Annalise Sanderson, with Deborah Clayton and so many more - I refer to these ladies as the ones who died in the establishments I was incarcerated in, whose passing broke the hearts of the women I love and am friends with still - then there is no hope for equality, humanity and community.
If you don't feel disgust that we are society that send women to prison KNOWING their lives will only get worse there. KNOWING that their sense of self will be destroyed. They're hope snuffed out in the knowledge that the prison system sometimes just doesn't care. Well then, shame on you.
Not shame on us.
We know what we did. We said our sorry's. We paid our dues. We survived those places. Shame on you for allowing the perpetuation of lives destroyed.
Victim impact?
We work on victim impact from day one in prison.
Do you?
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