DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT £200 - Part 1

By Hannah Racecar

I have chosen not to use my real name due to the stigma any type of conviction can bring to a person and their families. I no longer feel shame nor am I embarrassed by the reason I ended up in this situation but for reasons of ignorance or unconscious bias. Open mind – open heart. 

‘Day one’ said in the ‘Big Brother’ voice in my head. With the familiar geordie voice I try my best to defuse the anxiety going through me as I pass a number of walls made out of those cheap looking cream bricks. I have no idea what to expect, I tried to google ‘what to expect in prison’ but only received advice about finances, no guidance on the day-to-day routines or unwritten rules I should know to help me get by without unintentionally pissing someone off. All I had to rely on was ‘Orange is the New Black’ and a handful of articles about lesbian behaviour that usually occurs in prison libraries. None of which relieved any stress but helped initiate my over imaginative mind to create scenarios where I would end up ‘gay for the stay’. Not that I wasn’t open to experimenting, I just wasn’t sold on experimenting with a hairy prison vagina belonging to a murderer. 

Thankfully, my thoughts were interrupted. “Is this your first time in prison?” I was asked as I reached reception, not knowing it would be the main question of the day along with “Are you on drugs?” and “Do you have any suicidal thoughts?” 

I respond in the voice of a 5-year-old and regress to feeling like a child on their first day of school. I tend to regress around authority anyway or just any type of grown-up, I'm the youngest of 4 so have always played up to it, but I was genuinely shitting myself and I just wanted my Mummy. 

As I looked around, there were a mixture of guards, all middle aged and a bit plump, all seemed friendly and the type of people my mum would talk to whilst having a coffee, all had the same idea of ‘it's not that bad.’ It doesn’t matter how many times you are told that, it does not seem to make any sense knowing that you will be stuck inside one building for the next 9 months.  

It’s just like school, I think to myself as I look at the strange faces in the most unflattering lighting along the long corridor. Well, I hated school, I was fat, I had shit hair and I had no friends. Now I will have shit hair again, I will most likely get fat and I will be stuck in a school full of criminals...great! 

My next train of thought...Don’t try and be funny! I have always been the funny, cheeky one but I do not think my daring wit will be appreciated here. I am surprised, as a lot of people are, that I have not been punched a few times with my thoughtless comments. I was sure my mouth would get me into trouble one day and prison was the last place I wanted that to happen. I was in enough trouble already, so rule no.1 SHUT THE FUCK UP. 

Towards the end of my time locked up, a ‘lifer’ -in for stabbing someone to death over a parking space told me: “I am genuinely surprised you have not been beaten up.” So, I obviously didn’t take my own advice and shut the fuck up, did I?! 

I got taken to a meeting room with some comfortable leather chairs, which made me incredibly happy considering this was the ‘waiting to get a cell’ meeting room. I embraced these chairs as for the past 7 hours I was cooped up in a court cell then transported in a bus made for Hannibal Lecter. I was stuck in a sit-down plastic cell with no air, mid-June in rush-hour. We drove from Croydon to Middlesex and this was possibly the worst experience of my whole time in prison. I remember Michael Jackson (Beat it) on the radio and managing to zone out for a bit and forget my impending doom. When the realisation of how long this journey would be, a wave of dread flooded through me, these were the longest and most uncomfortable hours of my life and I wish this upon no-one. 

Back in the room, another girl is brought in, I say ‘girl’ to make myself feel better, like it's just a school for naughty girls, it made it easier to digest. I recognised her from the bus as we gave each other a little wave and smile. That little gesture gave me a lot of ease and as she sat next to me and we started talking, I actually thought, it wouldn’t be that bad. 

The next person in the waiting room confuses me. I think it is a boy, he seems agitated and the first thing out of his mouth was “Do you do drugs?” I hesitate then grin and reply “Sometimes, why do you have some?” As soon as these words came out, I remembered rule No.1 SHUT THE FUCK UP! I was fully aware he meant crack or heroin and was obviously having a hard time but I still had to make a joke. I still think about this moment when I can't sleep and cringe about all the things I have ever done in my life. His methadone prescription had been ‘halted’. 

I will never understand what he was going through and cannot imagine how hard it is dealing with addiction. I do not think I have ever been addicted to anything. Mcdonalds maybe, that is definitely addictive and sitting there starving made me want it so badly. Maybe that is the same sort of feeling magnified by a trillion. Luckily, I'm offered some food, baked potato with cheese and beans. I hadn't eaten since the night before and this interruption got me out of the heroin chat. The food tasted amazing; it wasn’t Mcdonalds but it hit the spot. I wonder if that is how heroin addicts feel about methadone. 

My other cringe moment and feeling like a dick was me worrying about my dog for 9 months and what the hell she is thinking, feeling abandoned, poor thing! The woman I was discussing this with had 3 years and a 11-year-old son, I really needed to SHUT THE FUCK UP but I really fucking love my dog. 

By the time I had finished my food, there were more girls in the waiting room, it all got very real, very quickly. I am listening to the girls’ stories; most are returning which is a thought I cannot comprehend happening to me. The majority of the returned are addicts – prison does not work, these girls should not be here. I sit quietly listening, they are back in prison for drug related crimes or boyfriend related crimes.  

I am completely out of my depth; I do not understand anything that anyone is talking about and when one of the women says she has got life for murder I automatically shut up. I want to know more but I am too scared to ask and everyone else seemed to be quiet at that point too. The next hour goes by intensely slowly. We are all waiting to be taken to a cell but we all have to see a nurse or doctor first. One of the girls comes back from her nurse appointment kicking off, for whatever reason, she pissed off the nurse and now the nurse has allocated her to the ‘crazy wing’. Rule No.2 DO NOT PISS OFF STAFF! 

One surreal moment was one of the girls bumping into her sister having no idea she was there or why. It all unfolded like they had just bumped into each other in a supermarket, like it was completely normal to bump into a family member in prison. This same girl gave me some advice “Tell the nurse that you are an alcoholic as they give you Valium.” I was really tempted, as I could have really done with a Valium but I chickened out when sitting with the nurse. I was also stressing out about being weighed, I had put on around 10kg from when I was first arrested to my final court date. It was dragged out for so long, nearly 2 years, and there is only so much you can do with that stress. I sulked, I ate, then I just got on with my life pretending it never happened. But now there was no more pretending and I was being weighed by a prison nurse hating myself for being fat more than hating myself for being in prison. 

Finally, we all got led out of the meeting room, I never would have thought I'd be so happy to be taken to a cell but I just wanted to be alone and to lay down.  

We all struggled with our plastic bags full of clothes, apart from the homeless lady who did not come in with anything apart from a severely bruised foot. I felt sorry for her the most, partly because she was from Glasgow and called me ‘Hen’ which reminded me of my Nanny but I also thought ‘well at least she has somewhere to sleep tonight.’ She was probably thinking the same. The addicts and the girls on the ‘crazy wing’ get dropped off first, we had to wait in this wing whilst they get locked in their cells. It smells, it’s noisy and there is banging. I saw a towel on the outside of the door rolled up at the bottom, I assumed this was because they smoked and to stop the smoke spreading, but no. Apparently this resident liked to shit everywhere and cover herself in it. The towel was there to stop the smell. Rule No. 3 DON’T BECOME CRAZY! 

When I finally got to my cell and was locked in, I was exhausted and had no energy to comprehend the door locking behind me. I needed to sleep. I needed to escape where I was. If I started thinking now of what, how, why, when then my head would explode. As I lay there, I am drifting off and then get annoyed as I remember season 3 of ‘Orange is the New Black’ is being released on Netflix today. Gutted! But I suppose I will be living my own immersive experience...every cloud!