Out the Mouths of Offenders

I’m an offender or society tells me I am. My now no longer friends call me a criminal and have alienated me and my once partner who himself proclaimed that he had his own colourful past has moved over to the other side and decided that he can no longer be associated with a ‘crim’  I have a ‘rap sheet’ I also have two children who I haven’t seen for nine Christmases, nine mother’s days and eighteen of their birthdays.  My father doesn’t want to know, my brother doesn’t want to know.  That’s the emotional side out of the way but it doesn’t stop there, even probation didn’t want me on their books.

I broke the law and knew exactly what I was doing.  I don’t have a mental illness nor do I have an substance addiction. The fact I liked a drop of the oil of negotiation at times might have made me an alcoholic in terms of the amount I shoved down my throat and I did fit in with the local AA members who gave me an ear to make it all a little easier to negotiate there for a time, but I felt like committing murder with all the talk of having a ‘disease’  The true essence of the matter is, I simply took a course of action which was against the law. I make no bones of this and however desperate I thought I was at the time, I deserved to be punished. We have a society and I stepped out of the realms of the boundaries by the society I live within.

So, as a result of my criminal behaviour I was sentenced. Rightly so. I got caught and I handed myself in. The right course of action. I went through two sentencing hearings, 18 months apart for crimes which were committed at the same time.  I walked out of one sentence hearing, then a week later, I committed the same crime all over again. As a result of the first set of crimes I was homeless after my partner threw me out. I went to live with a man who I didn’t know, who sexually assaulted me and I committed an act of fraud in a poor attempt at keeping a roof over my head. My partner then took me back and all was well for 18 months until I was summoned to court again with one false allegation from a rather irate landlord and a charge of fraud by misrepresentation.  My partner decided enough was enough and threw me out all over again. He then told all my friends, who ultimately turned against me. This was two months ago and I ended up in hospital having my stomach pumped. I was down South then and my court hearing was in the North. I handed myself into the police station who didn’t want to know until the warrant showed up on the PNC. This took a whole weekend and I slept on the canal after pawning my laptop to pay for two nights bed and breakfast. Money ran out, old habits die hard. Once I was safely in custody and about to be transported in a sweat van to the North where the driver took me to the wrong town and then once in the correct town, to the wrong court. Under my direction, I was the only person in the van with handcuffs on, I eventually landed at the correct courthouse. I pleaded guilty to the non-appearance charge. My list of convictions was rising by the minute.  I was then ordered to attend my pre-sentence report with the court probation officer the next day. This took three hours and I was informed that he would be recommending to the judge that it was ‘pointless’ sending me to prison as the offences were historical and that I’d had a period of non-offending for 18 months. Therefore, it was clear that probation was unable to service my needs and a suspended sentence was recommended. There had to be seen to be some way of passing a sentence for my crimes.

My non-appearance in court had pre-empted an email to my solicitor informing the court the situation I was in. Homeless, no money to travel, sadly it was down to the tax payer to pay for a van with a driver and a guard to escort me to the North.  The court was aware of my situation, probation were aware of my situation. It was still on the day an ‘all options’ sentence possibility. I packed a bag and off I went, expecting to be sent to prison. Prepared to take what was given to me with firm plans in my head of what I was to do with my time. Everybody else has degrees when they come out, maybe I could get me one of those. Imagine my confusion when I was passed another suspended sentence?  Only this time without a probation order.   I should think myself lucky, I hear the professionals cry, this is a chance to ‘go straight’ and build a life for myself. I have a brain, I was told, I should more than anyone be able to turn my life around.

All the brains in the world aren’t much good when one hasn’t a home, anyone to turn to. I wrote to 29 hostels asking to be placed on their list and was told I had to be referred by my probation officer. Great. Maybe I could defraud probation out of an officer to refer me to a hostel.  I didn’t have a probation officer and therefore, they were all incredibly sorry, but they couldn’t help me. So, there I was, no home, no chance of a job and I went to the local authority and I was asked if I had a local connection which I mentioned I was in the local press was that local enough for them?  The official looked slightly nervous as she stated that as I was a single person, I was not likely to be housed any time soon as I was not considered an urgent case. In all the authorities I called, I hit brick walls. Here I was, a criminal, with no money, no home, no job, no family, no kind friends to put me up. Only my mother who would place her tenancy at risk were she to have me staying. She’d been homeless for two decades, at the age of 67, I was not about to allow that to happen.

Here’s my beef. I read masses of information about rehabilitation, charities who are there to assist ex-offenders with housing, with jobs, hell, we even have Richard Branson making lovely statements to the media about employing ex-offenders as they’re hard working, they want to be given a chance to show they are capable of turning their lives around. We have NACRO who have a telephone line to call and give advice. I don’t need advice.  We have charities such as UNLOCK who can help you if you’re being discriminated against and if you can string a sentence together, you can write in their monthly fanzine about how being convicted was the best thing that’s ever happened to you and how your life is now on the up. Charities only want to hear of those who have managed to achieve something. It looks good when they can present a reformed offender and the work they have put into helping them.  We can read statistics about how desistance is achieved if criminals get married, if they have a home or if they have a job. What all the ‘professionals’ forget and they know it, is the transition period from leaving prison to reformed character or as in my case, basically being told by the court (after the reporter has had their juicy bits) that you’re free to go. Am I the only criminal who seems to think prison was the better option than the one I was given?

There must be quite a few ‘me’s’ out there. I cannot be the only one who isn’t wanted by probation service. I cannot be the only person in the CJS which is in no-man-land with no access to services to launch me onto the right path?  Freedom right now is the most dangerous asset I have. It is the risk period whereby I have nothing and that is my trigger.  It is not the fear of being locked up which keeps me from committing another string of offences.  It is not a fear of prison which is my deterrent. It is not the fear of people who were once my friends writing about me in the public domain, it is not the hope that my ex-partner wouldn’t join in the conversations and not send me messages that I deserve to go to prison. I’ve been there once, twice and then some. What is it that is placing me in a state of desistance?  It’s certainly not a platitude of ‘well dones’ from charities who I once spoke with about how I have been able to ‘come through’ a terrible time. It is not because of anything other than looking at my mother who is mentally ill, who has been spat on, who has been stepped over, much like I am being done now but by proxy from people who were once my closest confidantes, and knowing that I would likely break her heart were I to disappear from her life which could result in her taking her own life as I prop her up in her own tortured world.

Were I to dress up, pop on a suit, walk into a charity office and ask for help, it is likely I would get some. I don’t scrub up too badly and they’d likely love the part where I once washed my body in filthy canal water. Don’t we all love a story where the underdog comes through. They could take pictures of me as I tell them I now have set up my own sole trader operation and I have the chance to turn my criminal career into an honest days work.  It would make excellent reading and I might get a mention on a blog somewhere and fit into those statistics which professionals love to crow loudly about. I might even get some anti-depressants if I went to my GP.  Then I could throw in depression to the mix and people with degrees in ‘PSY’ will be able to lay further claim that mental illness does indeed feature highly in those who commit crimes.

The reality is very different for offenders, unless we’re on the ‘circuit’ there is very little or no help. I’ve received diddly squat in terms of support to turn my life around. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not about to throw myself off a bridge, I’m not about to drown myself in booze and a bottle of pills. I’ll find a way forward, each day it’s an inch at a time. Another 16 hours of working to fund that deposit and the first months rent.  It’s a lonely place flying a one man plane and it’s an even lonelier place when the probation service don’t want you. My first probation order and probation gave me a blinding reference, it was that brilliant they felt their work was complete well over a year ago.  While I was doing well with living a ‘nice life’ they could write down how I was doing a great job with my life, yet this time when I’m in more need than I ever was the first time around, because I had been crime free for 18 months, I was deemed as unserviceable?

I’d challenge any professional in the CJS to come and talk to me. It’s about time ex-offenders spoke out, freely and without moderation. Rehabilitation is not just about turning one’s life around and using the services, there are no services, not from where I am. I’ve had no services unless I want to call up on numerous 0845 numbers to speak with advisers who will offer, after monitoring my call for training purposes of course, some sort of half-baked advice on how I will begin to feel better for leading an honest life.  Rehabilitation takes time and it is not just a case of stopping offending and not doing what I had become conditioned to doing. Many may say I deserve this, I likely do, but I’m not looking for sympathy or a leg-up to make it easier for myself. I would simply like to speak out and let people know how it really is from someone who’s been there.