Breaking Out

by Janice Nix

  These are the changes I would really like to see:

  Men do far more offending than women. Only 5 per cent of prisoners in the United Kingdom are female. But in that 5 per cent is a quarter of all cases of suicide and self-harming in British prisons. Women prisoners need much more attention and help.

  Many are mothers. I believe that the whole of society is damaged by their sentences. Women who have suffered from violence and abuse are often traumatised when they go into prison. But the system doesn’t notice. The way that they are treated makes their problems far worse. The results are anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide.

  I also worry about what happens to boys when their mothers go to prison. They feel terror, abandonment and rage. They can’t cope with it. As men, they close their feelings off to allow them to cope. This is the anger that drives so much violent offending later on.

  So I’d like to see female minor offenders dealt with very differently. In many cases, this would mean not putting vulnerable people into the criminal justice system in the first place.

  Right now, when they leave prison, many of these women will face homelessness, lost jobs and broken families. Their children’s lives are thrown into chaos. The costs of trying to solve all these problems are enormous. If we did things differently, I think we could avoid them in the first place.

  The prison system is bursting at the seams. Serious mental health problems get missed. So I believe that assessments of a person’s mental health should be presented before they get to court. This vital work shouldn’t have to wait until someone has breached their probation.

  I’d also like to change the expectations of the courts and probation service. Right now, when a court hands down an order, a woman’s circumstances can get overlooked. I have worked with a client who was heavily pregnant, then later on, breast-feeding. She had no one to leave her baby with, and could not comply with her order. I had to breach her and return her to court. She was put through awful stress, and so was her baby. It could have been avoided.

  I feel particularly strongly about the women recruited as mules to smuggle drugs into Britain. To them, the payments can seem large. They’ve no idea what’s waiting for them when they land at Gatwick or Heathrow – the checks, the trained eyes watching as they step off the plane, the experienced customs staff who know the signs to look for. For the people who organise the mules, it’s a numbers game. If many mules are sent, enough of them get through to keep the profits flowing.

  I will never forget one service user who was recruited as a mule. She was told that her journey to England and back would take three days. She left her thirteen-year-old daughter in the care of a neighbour and boarded a plane with cocaine in the lining of her suitcase. She was caught. Her sentence was ten years. There are many others like her.

  I also think the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) should be re-assessed. It produces reports on the criminal backgrounds of people applying for work. Of course, there are serious crimes which can never be omitted. But my own DBS illustrates the problem with the way the system works right now.

  A check run on me in July 2019 contains six pages of offences. Any employer would freak out when they saw that. But I started work at the community hospital in 2004. I believe that my career since then counts for more than my previous history.

  I’ve never lied about my criminal record. But I would like society to understand how offenders feel when they are trying so hard to give their best in the future. They know their history puts employers off. But if they try to keep some details back, and then the DBS is carried out, they look like liars.

  Due to cuts in government funding, our probation service women’s group sadly came to an end. I believe it should have been expanded. I believe safe spaces should be offered in place of the rushed appointments too many probation service users experience now.

  Instead of sending people to prison, I’d like to see far more opportunity for community resolution for women. The police could then record a resolved crime, but these women would not spiral off through the criminal justice system, getting more and more hurt at every stage.

  Right now, we have services strained almost to breaking point, and never-ending cutbacks. I wish I could offer so much more. I’d like to see a joined-up approach to turning people’s lives around: help with housing, mental health, debt management, childcare, education and work.

  My dream is to run a proper residential unit where women on probation could live while they were getting back on their feet. While they were there, they would be supported, trained and equipped with the tools to move successfully on with their lives. I would provide wholesome meals and good surroundings to give them their dignity back. There would be therapy and counselling for those who needed it, along with education and advice about interviews and jobs.

  There would be help with addictions and substance abuse. There would be someone to talk to, not just in office hours, but 24/7. There would be massage, relaxation and music in the evenings. A play room and a garden would keep their children happy when they came to see them on visits. Family rooms would let them spend time together, allowing them to rebuild their trust with their kids.

  This isn’t pampering criminals. This isn’t rewarding crime. This is peeling back layers of damage that have happened over many years. If you have nothing and nobody helps you, if you’re released from prison to live on the streets, you’ll quickly fall back into the problems and the crimes that put you in prison in the first place.

  If, as a society, we really wanted to cut offending, this is what we’d do. In place of sabre-rattling, vengeful policies, we’d help people turn their lives around.

  So I would like to connect the powers at the top – the politicians who run our country – to the people on the ground who understand what needs to be done. If I could say one thing to those in charge, it would be this. We are each others’ keepers. We are sisters and brothers. If we could run this system in this way, I profoundly believe that we could change the outcomes for the better.

  On 2 May 2017, my role changed again. The change was due to political decisions. The probation service split into two: the National Probation Service (NPS) and the privatised Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC), owned by MTCnovo.

  My new role was that of Community Payback Officer. It was significantly different. I was no longer hands-on, able to go out into the community, visit homes and intervene actively to support my service users. Instead, I answered phones, recorded issues and directed service users to their projects.

  I didn’t like the changes. From my seat behind a desk, I found it was much harder to hold people’s hands. The careful, sometimes slow process of building up trust until a vulnerable person would confide in me could no longer happen. I saw clients hesitating to talk openly to anyone, knowing that the next phone call they made would very likely be taken by someone else who knew nothing about them. It was difficult and painful for traumatised people to keep going through what had happened with a different professional, each time starting over again from the beginning.

  I felt a real sense of loss, and deep frustration. I worried about the clients I had left behind when I moved on. They had been left hanging, and to me, this seemed very wrong. But there were only so many hours in the day, and a limit to what I or my colleagues could manage to do.

  Probation is a lifeline. Our job is to keep offenders out of prison. Help them to make changes before it’s too late. Support them as they try to turn things round. Far too often, this lifeline comes very close to breaking, and the situation’s growing worse, not better. The political changes that have happened have not, in my opinion, made the service’s vital work easier. Sadly, I believe that in recent years, the opposite has happened.

  Right now, far too often, we are trying to clear up after a hurricane with a dustpan and brush.

  ‘It was sad of me, really,’ said Izzie with a grin, ‘to enjoy being on probation. But I did. I was so lonely before.’

  The women’s
group grew in size until we had around fifteen regulars – all different ages, facing different charges, but finding support from each other. Izzie became a central member. Instead of the skinny, fidgeting girl with the dealer hanging around for her outside, she shared her story and listened to others, offering them feedback and advice. I saw her kindness blossom. She made friends. And every day, her own recovery grew stronger.

  In the summer of 2016, the women’s group was closed down. The women we had worked with were bereft. Many of them wrote to protest at the closure of their group. Izzie was one.

  ‘I am writing to explain what the women’s probation group has done for me’, she wrote. ‘I was depressed, using heroin and crack every day, lonely and breaking the law to fund my habit. I had no motivation to change. But when I met Janice, she told me her story and showed me there is a way out of drugs and crime. She was someone I could turn to for support and advice.

  ‘The group has helped me in so many ways, to have female company and friends and to share anything that’s on our mind or issues or worries, or anything that’s going well. At first I thought I didn’t need to go, but I now look forward to coming and have close relationships with the girls and the staff.

  ‘I cannot put into words what Janice has done for me. I am forever grateful for her support. It’s vital that other women in the criminal justice system get the help and support they need.’

  The women’s appeals were unsuccessful. Cuts always seem to be unstoppable – no matter what anyone tries to say. The havoc that they bring goes unseen by the hand that hacks the services away.

  Izzie and I had talked so much. At the end of our last meeting, we’d said everything we needed to say. She walked across the room to me and simply held my hand. I knew that she was making me a promise. There would be no going back.

  I trusted her. I always knew I could. And Izzie has kept that promise to this day.

  Acknowledgements

  FIRSTLY, THANK YOU TO Elizabeth Sheppard for the love and dedication equal to mine towards the writing of this book. Your support has been boundless.

  To David Riding and the MBA team: I am grateful to you for believing in the power of my story.

  Kate Fox, aka LadyBoss at HQ: from the moment I met you, I knew you were the one! Thank you for taking Breaking Out to the world. And to the rest of the Breaking Out team at HQ for your hard work and attention to detail across the book. I’m totally in love with the book cover.

  My thanks to Edward Shivmangal for bringing the writing challenge to me with a lunch date that I will never forget. Emma Parton for supporting and managing me during my time at LPT – Diversity and Engagement Award recognition would not have been possible without you. Charlotte Durnun, for the time you have taken out of your busy schedule to discuss new and innovated ideas for the women’s project. Francine Knowles-Weller, my buddy, for always being the person I’d moan to in my early years as an Engagement Worker. Sharon Millington, you always believed I could do this, and I am grateful for the support while on life’s journey. Ros Griffiths, for being a friend and confidante throughout my younger years.

  To St Giles Trust, thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your amazing volunteering team and the HR team that signposted me to London Probation Trust.

  Heather Munroe, the Probation Chief at the London Probation Trust 2014, for the opportunity you gave me to work with professionals who believed ex-service user involvement would make a significant difference in society. This would not be possible without your vision.

  Sonia Flynn, thank you for the care and support you gave me as an engagement worker while you were senior lead at London Probation Trust. Paula Harriot for being the champion and voice for developing women like me, and for showing me how to shine.

  Finally, Delphine Duff for being more than just a friend and colleague, thank you for the patience you took to mentor and support me in developing my gift.

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