Released into Prison

I actually found prison an experience I enjoyed and even now occasionally miss it. Coming from a very broken and fatherless family, I would pretty much do as I pleased from the age of 11. Developing a drink problem and the occasional pot of glue and cans of gas...my life was on a downward spiral. I received a 6 year prison sentenced aged 21 for robbery.

I had to go through the alcoholics anonymous programme before release after serving three and a half years. All I had to do was report to my probation officer once a week. I stayed at my mother's boyfriends house. There was no help in claiming benefits, what I was allowed to claim. No rehabilitation after being away for three and a half years, I thought as an incarcerated person would think, I really didn't know what I had to do, if anything, to get on in life. I was simply 'there'!

I had a new faith, and become a Christian. It was these few people who gave me guidance and pointed the way. I found the moral support that was freely given, and that made all the difference to me...what they gave, was free, and because they wanted to help. From clothes, to food and most importantly, friendship.

I was helped and accepted as an ordinary person of need, one that had made mistakes, I was someone that desperately wanted to change, but only knew one kind of life. I learned that many are released from prison, but never find release from themselves. The long hard battle to lead a new life, and leave the old one behind. After 25 years of freedom, I still battle with myself, the old man comes back to haunt. But this new life that good friends help me find, keeps me from returning to the old me.