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April 27, 2006
Family support
Gap year volunteer Charlotte Ashton spends a month with a Durham charity that looks after the needs of prison visitors
The recent publication of a report by the Prison Reform Trust was a disheartening end to my month as a volunteer for a charity called the North Eastern Prison After Care Society (Nepacs), which runs visitors’ centres at five prisons across the north-east.
With warnings that over-crowding will prohibit the sort of rehabilitation that makes prisoners less likely to re-offend, the implications of the report have been hotly debated.
But as prisoners are shipped from ‘overcrowded jail to overcrowded jail’ little attention is paid to the silent group that follows them: grandparents, husbands, wives, cousins and children who travel the length and breadth of the country to visit loved ones in prison, in a desperate attempt to keep the family together.
As Ruth Cranfield, former Nepacs secretary, told me one morning at HMP Durham, “These families are a very neglected group in society. They’re invisible and their needs are largely ignored.”
Standing-room only
On a practical level, the rising prison population means greater pressure on already over stretched visitor facilities. Visitors are allowed through to the prison on a first-come, first-served basis –– so in order to get as much time with the prisoner as possible many will arrive up to two hours before the visit is scheduled to start.
At the prisons in which Nepacs operates there is somewhere warm to wait, with toilets and a tea bar, (this still isn’t the case at all prisons) but on busy days the centres are bursting. The Nepacs room at HMP Acklington (which also serves the adjacent young offenders’ institute, Castington) has seating for 60, but on an average Saturday they accommodate over 200 visitors, most of whom have travelled by public transport for over two hours.
Apart from offering somewhere comfortable –– albeit cramped on popular days –– to wait, these visitor centres are an important source of practical advice and emotional support for offenders’ families. Colourful leaflets with titles like ‘Telling the children’, ‘Living with separation’ and ‘Preparing for release’ are displayed on the coffee tables. Posters on the wall at Castington show photographs and contact details of the team in charge and pictures of the wings where young offenders are kept.
Debbie, the Nepacs member of staff in charge there, explained how distraught the parents of young offenders are by the time they arrive for a visit. It is easy to see why, given the horror stories that regularly appear in the press. In February an investigation commissioned by the Howard League for Penal Reform found widespread sexual harassment and physical mistreatment of young offenders in custody.
Stories of teenage drug addicts committing suicide in prison are not uncommon. “Parents need to know that their children are being looked after,” Debbie told me. “It’s a great comfort if we can put them in touch with the prison so they can hear for themselves that the staff aren’t monsters.”
The Nepacs staff who run the centres have first-hand experience of the problems facing prisoners’ families and I was impressed at how knowledgeable they are about the criminal justice system and associated support agencies.
They do a lot more than serve tea and water the flowers that decorate the cheerfully furnished waiting areas. Visits are weekly, so in the space of a month I wasn’t able to get to know any of the visitors properly, but I did spend a number of happy afternoons with the children in the play areas while they waited to see their fathers.
Blinkered view
At the end of month I wondered why I had ever felt apprehensive about volunteering within the prison sector; everyone was incredibly friendly, staff and visitors alike, and I had gained fascinating insight into an area of the criminal justice system that gets little, if any, coverage. But as Ruth explained, volunteers are difficult to recruit. “People think we don’t want to help people like that, but what a blinkered view! It’s indicative of the problems and prejudices these families are facing.”
The existing team of visitor centre workers is over stretched as it is and with prison numbers set to rise, the need for more volunteers will become increasingly urgent, particularly if Nepacs is going to expand as Ruth would like.
She would like to see greater provision for teenage visitors who are most likely to give up on their relationship with a prisoner when they get fed up with the long journey and boring wait a visit involves. They have made some headway with the young people’s room at HMP Durham, the first of its kind in the country. The activity room is complete with music, computer games and a small pool table, which provide light relief for eight to 18-year-olds while the adults they have come with read the paper or entertain younger siblings downstairs.
Shared understanding
But the youth project is about more than just passing the time. The space allows teenagers to meet people of a similar age facing similar difficulties, who don’t harbour the prejudices other friends may have against prison families. In addition to growing up in a broken family, many don’t feel comfortable telling their friends or teachers they have a parent in prison and some have been encouraged to keep it a secret.
“It’s a terribly isolating, confusing experience for many teenagers,” Ruth said. “They can experience a whole mixture of emotions towards the parent serving the sentence, at a time when relationships are difficult anyway. We’re still fighting to get a space in the visit room itself for teenagers, because often they just sit there awkwardly while their parents catch up.”
The emphasis is on protecting families and preventing relationships deteriorating altogether when a parent, sibling, son or daughter has to serve time. Providing facilities for visitors may further increase the already huge costs of incarceration, but the statistics show that it is worth every penny: prisoners who maintain contact with family are up to six times less likely to reoffend upon release.
Pioneering
Ruth is full of good ideas about how this can practically be achieved and even at 80 she tirelessly contributes to research and debate surrounding criminal justice issues. Her enthusiasm is infectious. She has written a book about the history of Nepacs and is researching the lives of Thomas and Sarah Holmes, Durham’s first probation officers and early Nepacs pioneers.
Ruth is clearly something of a pioneer herself and I passed many an otherwise boring hour behind the visitor centre tea bars and checking-in desks chatting with her and the other volunteers, most of whom have been volunteering at the visitors’ centres for some years and have accumulated a wealth of experience and entertaining stories. |
The relocation of inmates to temporary accommodation or a different prison as the service juggles cell space, will undoubtedly mean longer journeys for visitors and the renewed stress as they get to grips with a new location.
I doubt the “police cells, prefabs, prison motorway vans and decommissioned hulks” in which the Prison Reform Trust report warns prisoners will have to be housed will provide cups of tea and toys for tired visitors. — Dawn / Guardian Service
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