@rebeljustice
This is Amy.
She has recently been released from a two-year sentence at HMP Askham Grange in Yorkshire. Throughout these two years, she has barely seen her now eight-year old daughter. With Covid spreading like wildfire, those in prison have been some of the worst hit. Visits are much less frequent, so Amy spent a lot of time worrying about how her daughter was doing in foster care, and missing the sound of the voice that never fails to lift her mood with its bright optimism and innocence. Beyond this, she has had to spend up to 22 hours per day alone in her cell, with neither stimulation nor social contact.
This, Amy is sure, has left her in a worse mental state than when she first arrived. To her, life in prison during the pandemic is like being in a double cage: imprisoned in prison.
Now she is out, she is back caring for her daughter. But the mental state she has been driven to makes this privilege an arduous struggle. The joy of caring for her child was something she wished nobody could ever take away from her. Now that has been stolen, too.
Amy is a talented tailor, as you can tell from her impressive garments she made before her spell in prison. Wearing these clothes makes her feel woman again, deserving of dignity, and she relishes in the opportunity for self-expression after being stripped of it for too long.
But these talents do not guarantee a job. Her record is forever tarnished. She carries a stigma of “criminal” at every job interview she attends, trailing after her like a train on a dress. Her hunt for a job, she knows, will be long and hard, and she would be extraordinarily lucky to find a position for which she is trained. Amy so wishes she could work; having a purpose every day, being surrounded by colleagues, and showing her daughter what she is capable of would make her incredibly proud.