Sold fork lift trucks, did corporate finance, produced a film, committed a fraud. Served my time. Some experiences are not lived through. I write and speak.
A year ago I was awake, waiting to be released from prison. I'd been awake for hours. Couldn't sleep. This morning I'm up early too. I let the dogs out to run about the garden, made a coffee, and sat in the garden, listening to running water, birds and distant sheep.
@dsiroker
Payment systems - only having to carry a card, phone or watch and being able to conduct a verified transaction in seconds across the globe, is peer mind blowing when you pause to consider it.
@ellegist
the desire to feel desired, not just utile is found in most men and women. The sex-swapped equivalent would be something like “I dated much hotter women but you’ll make a great mother to my children” and I suspect most women would not enjoy hearing that sentiment.
In prison they shine torches through your door at night. Light blazed into the room, until you wake and move, showing you're alive. This morning, around 3am, I woke with a bright light in my face. For a moment I was back there. Then I blinked at the moon and reached for my wife.
@datepsych
I played rugby with a guy who would consistently experience this. Astonishingly attractive; women would regularly approach him to chat him up. No personality; I could see their interest declining with every word he spoke, and they would rapidly leave.
Tomorrow I go back into a
#prison
for the first time since my release. It’s going to be strange arriving there as a member of an inspection team, not an inmate
Leaving prison is strange. Been out a month and although I love being in my own bed, being free to see friends & loved ones, my mood does vary and I find myself missing the camaraderie of the wing. Some great lads there.
#Prison
@ellegist
I mean, it’s not projection because my life / sexual experience is very different to this man’s. Your comparison is flawed - assuming the woman has had hookups and FWB (which, ya know, it’s 2024, almost certainly and nbd), then she is saying that her partner has different
The last few hours of my sentence tick away. At midnight I'm not on licence anymore. Not really sure how to feel. No desire to celebrate. Just a sense of time passing, of ending.
@nolemonnomelon
I will wait for you in death’s halls
I will honour your memory
You have *mattered* to me more than you will ever know; I will never forget you
When you walk in the forest in spring sunlight, think of me
Namárië
@ellegist
More compassionate take: pregnancy is a wild, destabilising time for both parents, and feels often run much higher than before or after. They probably won’t give the chair a second thought in 6 months time.
Just over two years ago, at HMP Hollesley Bay, I started an MA in Creative Writing. This week I've had my final grades through - I got a merit. Very pleased - now just need to wait to hear back from my PhD applications! 🙏
Prison changed me. Before I loved to be in busy, noisy places with lots of people. Now I find I just want solitude, or at most one or two others around. After the constant noise of the wing, I just want silence and birdsong.
Almost two years ago, in January 2021 I started my MA in Creative Writing. At the time I was a prisoner at HMP Hollesley Bay. I've just submitted my final portfolio. Now the long wait for results.
Prison reform is often considered a left wing issue. My experience inside showed me that whatever your political leaning you should want to fix our broken prison system.
Our approach to phones in prison is completely backward. Everyone agrees that increased contact with family reduces reoffending, improves behaviour & mental health and reduces harm. And yet phone calls are an expensive, rationed luxury for prisoners.
On the day I went to prison, cramped in a cell on the ‘sweat box’ bus, I looked out the window across the river at Parliament in the sunshine and thought “I’ll never see the inside of that place again”.
Feel surreal that today I’m attending a safer prisons event in the House of
Four years ago right now I’d just arrived at Southwark crown court for my sentencing. I felt on edge, frightened, imagining what might lie ahead. Coronavirus was still a distant rumble in China..
This morning I’ve walked the dog, played with my daughter and now I’m sitting down
@molly0xFFF
@keribla
People can behave in strange and unusual ways in times of high stress. I know my parents found my trial and sentencing very difficult - I'm sure SBF's are overwhelmed by his arrest.
Thinking about writing an illustrated book aimed at young children who have a father in
#prison
, explaining and hopefully reassuring. Would this be useful? Has it been done before for the UK system.
Imagine it. 22 or 23 hours a day locked inside a cell the size of a parking space. A bunk bed. A sink. A toilet. A little desk. Nothing to do. You stare at the walls, at the TV. Prisoners sleep their sentences away when they could and should be studying, training or working.
It’s not just Wandsworth…
@HMIPrisonsnews
inspection report says “too many” prisoners at HMP Brinsford, West Midlands, “spend their days sleeping & watching television” ..
“Helplessness…lack of motivation” are driving violence..
Staff body-worn cameras often not turned on..
@AdamAtkins0
Wasn’t it astonishing! To see a space like that full, to experience it as a theatre was amazing. The wind whipping up behind as though the gods wished to be heard too.
I often think of the elderly man on H1 in Wandsworth, too frail to shower himself, helped every morning by his neighbour, half-carrying him to the shower block and washing him. God is very loud in prison.
There’s something about attending my monthly probation meeting that triggers waves of misery in me. Why? I’m not in prison anymore so I should be fine and yet…a reminder that my release is conditional, that invisible bars still cage me
Four years ago Lockdown started in England. In Wandsworth prison we received a succession of notes, then spent endless days behind our cell doors. The biggest change was the sound. At night the chatter and shouting ceased; the wing was silent other than muffled coughing as men
@ellegist
Yeah, I found as a 38 year old former prisoner looking for love, marriage and children that I received a huge amount of attention on the apps.
Old prisons like Wandsworth are made of brick and steel. Giant ovens. Those bricks soak up heat through the long sweaty day. When the sun goes down that heat is released and the cells get even hotter.
HMP Wandsworth was an awful prison when I was there. Even then it ruined lives and wasted human potential. Today’s Urgent Notification shows that it has only become worse. Wandsworth isn’t unique though; many of our prisons are awful, ruinous and wasteful. We need radical change
I can trace my decision to pursue a writing career from the feedback I received after entering the Koestler prize in 2020. They bring hope into darkness, and change lives.
Our BBC Radio 4 Appeal to raise money for our arts mentoring scheme is live & we really need your support to reach our target!
The appeal is live until Sunday 14 April, so please listen in, share with your networks and donate if you can
🔗
#R4Appeal
The very first man I met in prison was on an IPP sentence. Up until that moment I hadn't even heard of them. His situation shocked me. It's great that the government has finally acted on this.
Realised I was walking very close to Southwark Crown Court, where I was sentenced. The forgotten, familiar tightness in my chest and writhing guts. Decided I had to walk off Tooley St, and face it. I choose not to let this place haunt me.
Awful dream. Back in prison. It’s the day I’m due for release. It’s delayed. Some bureaucratic reason no one can explain to me. Most of us leave prison, in the end, but it never really releases us.
@enslagsperson
@datepsych
He was oblivious for the longest time. Then we explained to him and he took it pretty well, started trying to work on his conversation skills
I'm writing a piece on Christmas in prison - an antidote to the 'lags enjoy slap up Christmas dinner' narratives in certain tabloids. I'd love to hear stories about prison Christmas from former/current prisoners, their families, and people who work in prisons.
#journorequests
In prison the simplest things feel like gifts from heaven. I remember being able to toast bread for the first time in months and being astounded at how good it tasted.
I acquired a tomato today. Don't ask me how! I haven't seen one in years at this prison. I don't know whether to eat it like an apple, cut it to use on several meals, or share with a friend. I can't believe this stupid tomato has me in tears of anticipation & anxiety.
We know there are three factors which make a huge difference to someone's likelihood of reoffending:
If they have a home to go to
If they have work
If they have a supportive family / social network
Then that likelihood of reoffending drops significantly.
Throwing people out
50,000 people are released from prison each year
1 in 3 are released homeless or to unknown circumstances.
Switchback are calling for a National Resettlement Framework that guarantees accommodation on release.
Stable housing is important for a stable life away from crime.
Forty tomorrow. For the first year in forever I won’t be worried about, or in prison. Life surprises us and I’m sure there will be struggle and stress ahead but right now I’m happy and content. Treasure the golden days when you get them. They’re a rare treasure.
Every day in prison I wrote a journal. There’s about 500,000 words in these books. It’s taken a while but now I think it’s time to start reading them, and writing.
When I was in prison, I loved reading
@InsideTimeUK
- a newspaper distributed inside our jails. It made me feel as though other people understood my experience. It's always a pleasure to write for them. This piece, about HMP Wandsworth, and
@WandsworthPIC
is addressed to people
Having governed 3 prisons, run 3 anti-corruption units, delivered anti-corruption training from India to Argentina, written the handbook on anti-corruption measures for UNODC , I agree with David not the POA.
@shotscarecrow
@runthinkwrite
@AudreySuffolk
@NickHeath
🙄 we have plenty of research about bone density, muscle density etc. You have to believe that those differences disappear which transition to believe there’s “no reason”. That belief is unevidenced and obvious nonsense. And the reality is even you’d be dangerous playing
@_ali_taylor
I feel like anyone who’s been a child should know this - we all have experience of how our parents shaped us. Wisdom is having the confidence to recognise that studies aren’t measuring the things which matter.
I’m working on an investigation into the probation service. I’d love to speak to probation staff and people on probation. We can speak anonymously.
#journorequest
“Lawless, inhumane “ a place that “maims” the prisoners and the people who work there .
Wandsworth Prison and the public fight back to make it better.
Prod
@sallyches
. 🎥
@SorenMunk
. Ed -
@DonnaMarie_W
via
@jackielongc4