YOU have done a crime and have been put in jail. The reason being is that you have executed a crime and there’s the hope that being in prison will rehabilitate you. Does this work ‘it makes little or no difference’.
The best that you can hope for in prison is that you are treated with decency, dignity and self-growth. Unfortunately, in some prisons, it’s indecent, and unsafe and allows no such growth and further damage to those that have had to survive there.
But what happens when you come out of prison?
Every day behind bars is just one day closer to when a prisoner comes out of jail, and for some, the thought of that moment when they walk through the gates to become a free person once again is the only thing that keeps them going, but how, after years of being mainly confined to the four walls of a cell, does a prisoner begin to even start again and reintegrate back into society?
One day you’re in the confines of those walls and then you’re being released.
You’ve already packed up the belongings that you’ve accumulated while in jail and now all you want to do is get up and go.
Prisoners are then taken to reception where they will go through a discharge process, which includes having the items impounded from them on arrival – returned.
An officer reads your licence conditions which you then have to sign, and then you walk out the gates, and for a lot of prisoners no one is there to meet you and some don’t even have anywhere to go.
Some are fortunate, they have friends or family to stay with, and for some, there are bail hostels they can go to but they’re extremely limited, but the reality of it all is that for many the reality of being back on the outside is a giant disappointment.
It’s not easy coming out of prison and this is why numerous people re-offend.
If you are lucky to get into a bail hostel it’s still difficult because even though you have an address you won’t have any bank account even if you had one before you went in because it would have been closed down and without any utility bills, drivers licence or passport you won’t be allowed to open one up. You won’t have any credit record and because of this, you won’t be able to rent, and it constantly becomes a vicious cycle.
But if you don’t have any help, you’re essentially on a one-way street back to jail, because at least there you had a roof over your head.
On a released prisoner’s first day out from the inside, there will be a series of appointments to organise things and meet your probation officer, and if you’ve been fortunate to have been given a bail hostel then you will likely end up in an area that you don’t know and have to find these places in the first place, which is even more brutal if you’re a person with learning problems.
The system is not for you to not re-offend but to make sure that you do.
Prisoners are given a £76 prison discharge which is supposed to last until their benefits are paid.A
If you are lucky enough to be sent to a bail hostel, the time limit is three months stay or less because they just don’t have the room so are now booting people out after 8 weeks.
Some prisoners are lucky enough to be linked up with agencies on the outside, but for a lot of prisoners, the grim fact is they will potentially end up homeless because the probation service can only assist so much, so it’s pretty much up to you to find a place to live.
But there are difficulties with staying in a hostel anyhow, because you may have been a drug user before going into prison and while in prison you became clean, and then you came out of prison and are sent to a hostel around drug users again, which is challenging.
In prison, you count the days until you’re free and until you can see your family again, but in some cases, it’s just a big disappointment, you’re free, but it’s just not what you thought it would be.
You step towards the gates and there’s no one there. There isn’t a taxi waiting to pick you up, you’re just given a travel warrant to get the train or bus.
Another massive shock after a time on the inside is how much the world on the outside has altered. Depending on how long a prisoner has been incarcerated, for some, it’s a completely unknown world.
You’re not used to the traffic, you’re not used to the crowds, and you’re coming out and starting all over again.
The release process from jail might be improving a bit, but more should be done to support those reintegrating back into society, and the bottom line is that without any support you’re not going to be able to survive.
There needs to be more duty of care and the process of coming out of jail needs to be seamless.
There never used to be anything in place so it is improving but it’s still not flawless, but if you don’t have help coming out of prison, it will just feel like punishment after punishment.
Everyone leaving prison should have a safe and suitable home to go to on release because allegedly our reforms to probation are designed to foster long-term rehabilitation so that it can ultimately reduce offending, but it doesn’t do any such thing.
For months a prisoner will have waited for that moment of release, but little do they realise what lies ahead of them, and many are released with no external support and nowhere to go, in a metropolis they may have never seen before, which leaves them not knowing whether to turn left or right upon leaving the prison.
And when you leave the prison you will discover that your months of dormancy have taken a toll on your physical strength and you might struggle to carry your bags or wander very far.
You have to see probation, which is an important meeting, otherwise, you’ll instantly be recalled back to jail for missing that, and then it’s onto the Jobcentre, and all in an area that you might not know.
You’re given a discharge grant on release which is supposed to get you through the first few days, but in fact, this money will have to last a lot longer, 5-6 weeks before you get any benefit payments started.
So the delight of getting released was short-lived, and then the reality of it all soon sets in, and of course, there’s a stigma of having been in prison, so very few employers are keen to take on an ex-con and it’s near unattainable to get any insurance for anything, and having lost your home and savings, private rentals are now outside your means.
Your prison sentence doesn’t end when the prison gates open, and before you were imprisoned you would never have been able to comprehend why prisoners would ever want to go back, but once you leave you’ll be able to fully understand why.
Prison isn’t easy, it isn’t nice by any stretch of the imagination, and it isn’t a holiday camp as people often say it is, but it does offer stability and structure.
Some people in jail have no family, no accommodation nor a life to return to. Some have no life skills, having spent most of their adolescent and short adult life in one institution or another, and for many, coping alone on the outside in a strange city will be too much for their mental health, so it’s easier to ensure that they return to prison by committing another offence.
From the outside, this might sound bizarre, but for someone who’s homeless with no money, prison is at least a roof over your head, especially if that’s become your norm. SO IF YOU BELIEVE THAT BEING IN PRISON REHABILITATES, THINK AGAIN!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 