Trigger Warning : Self harm / suicide
I don't know which I'm more angered by this morning.
The Manchester Evening News reporting on the inquest details of ANOTHER death (2019) at HMP Styal, or the fact they are writing taglines such as "heartbreaking" when they, much like other faux media and journalism will have written this woman's tale in a much more onerous light when she was sent to prison.
I'm sure, much like the rest of the women who find themselves before the judge, jury and journalists, they will have had their story "told" with some of the key phrases "X was caged for 12 weeks," "X was put behind bars for 12 months" "X no longer a menace to society was imprisoned" and so on.
But no, the monsters who are caged, but happen to die behind the bars that keep them, suddenly; imagine, only upon death - are viewed as victims, as tragedies, as failings of a broken system. Yet somehow, we don't cast these aspersions of horror, sadness, regret, disgust when the women are being sent down by the bang of the gavel - no we hail the justice system for serving the community by removing these criminals from society - to protect it.
Well, who protects them?
Who protects us?
Let me tell you. In HMP Styal.
NO-ONE.
How many times do I have to write this in anger, burning sadness and contempt?
We are sending women to prison to die.
For stealing cheese and shampoo?????????
We have created a self perpetuating cycle of crime, fuelled by poverty and the governments unwillingness to invest in proper systems of change; mental health spend, addiction services, domestic abuse support, stable housing, a less arbitary welfare system, trauma informed practices that address offending behaviour and stem the fallout before the implosion.
The illogical approach of building more prisons to line more profiteering private pockets, than to really look at society and it's screaming, it's begging - help us.
Banging up women behind bars exacerbates and amplifies mental health issues, addiction withdrawal, isolation, degredation, pain and suffering.
Loss of liberty, family, community, stability, whatever form that presents itself in. It's loss, it's mourning, it's brutal and it's dehumanising.
I can't keep waking up to the hypocritical click bait titles of death and sadness, when there's no action, there's no meaning. Theres a moment of mourning with the trolls in full force "another one off the streets for good," "good riddance," "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime," and the do-gooders who feel the pain of it in a fleeting second, at the thought of a mothers loss, a daughter, a sister, a friend and then, life moves on. We move on. And we put the inconvenient truth behind us.
For change to come, it needs to be with the roar of the people, to push back and fight back and say : ENOUGH.
It's enough.
Change must come.
And yet, where is my army?
Are you with me or not?
Are you angry? Use it.
Write to your MP, use your social media, comment on the articles, probe the journalists, query the inquest, challenge HMP, ask the questions, tell the stories, shout it as loud as you can.
ITS NOT OK.
I could have died in HMP Styal, and I write in anger. I do.
I could have died.
And the MEN would have written an article reporting on my death, and they would have said "there were failings, there were learnings," and no-one would be held to account - just me, the one who broke the law and got sent to prison.
Not the prison for failing in its duty of care.
Not the courts that put me there knowing my mental health would spiral.
I am all for accountability and proportionality, this you know. I'm not shirking my responsibility or requirement of punishment - but should that have meant death?
I sit, as I type, in a pair of shorts - lovely imagery, bear with me.
Tanned brown thighs, beautifully reminiscent of a recent family holiday.
Tanned brown thighs with white glistening lines scattered, etched, for eternity.
History.
Like a tree, the rings of my life and my sorrow, each with a story, a pain, I can recall.
I lay on my sun lounger just last week, and I traced a more recent one and recalled the memory if it's occurrence.
Friends and family, don't endure the following. Scroll on.
I was sat, cross legged on my prison bed, dark green duvet, pale green sheet, gazing, at the razor in my hands.
I drew it across my skin and gasped. Blood red. Release.
I haven't self-harmed for a long, long time. The last time I did, was when I blew the business up and couldn't control the mental breakdown that followed. Those lines are listed in white on brown still.
In that moment, in that environment, in that isolation and chaos and a sadness I've never had, I felt like I had already died, and couldn't fathom why I was wandering around this prison existence a ghost of who I was, because I was adamant the person I was, couldn't exist beyond these walls any more.
Bang bang on my glass window, I drop my razor, lift my blind, and it's my girls.
"Oi dickhead, come and have a coffee,"
It's like they knew, they felt it. And often, that's the way of the prison. The women see it, feel it, hear it and protect each other. The prison doesn't.
In this instance, the prison did. But it wasn't Styal.
In Styal, I was unmedicated for WEEKS, citalopram withdrawal after 3 years medicated, and it hit me hard. It hit me hard in 24 hour bang up, locked in cell, in freezing winter, during a global pandemic and as a first timer inside.
I eyeballed hanging places and positions for days. Which one, where, how? To use what.
Forgive the stark nature, reality is a bitter pill to swallow I know, and if it makes you want to turn away, it should, because this is the truth of what happens in places we send women every day - for YOUR protection, not theirs.
The light green sheets seemed cumbersome to become a noose, to loop a pipe, something else... something else.
And I sat, in my cell, alone, for days on end, with no human interaction, no mental health checks, no medication, and I thought, and I wrote, and it was psychotic ramblings of a broken soul, but I survived.
IF, I had had access to a razor, things would have been different. A familiar friend and swift exit.
This is the reality of what prison does to a complex mind.
And so, with horror story after horror story, we pine, for a better world, but do nothing to bring it to fruition.
For the Christine's, Annalise's, Deborahs and more... we remember names, crimes - probably.
And we wait, for the next headline, the next inquest, where the HMPPS will say "we have learnings," "we've got millions to invest in better mental health services in prison, we have better training and safeguarding for our prison officers,"
None of it equates to safer prisons. Women keep dying.
Christine died in 2019, Annalise died in 2020, Deborah died in 2020.
There have been 40 self inflicted deaths in women's prisons since 2013. 3 in 2022, 3 more in 2023, but following Christine and Annalise... there were learnings? So many "learnings" that 6 more women have perished since? An increase, not a decline.
(image from Inquest)
It has to stop.
For the sake of women standing in court today, tomorrow, next week.
We have to do something different or people will keep dying for the sake of justice.
