What’s your name?
My name’s Paul Weller and I live in Perth.
What was prison like for a first timer?
Well, routine wasn’t really that difficult as far as physical routine but I did and still do I’m under Cornerstone at the moment and on medication because I suffer from depression and when you first go in and everything’s explained to you and with a first timer like me, you’ve got so much running through your head you need time for what’s actually cleared before you can actually take it in on how a prison actually works and that and before you’ve got time to take stuff in you’re given your induction and where the brain is still so full from going through so much at that point in time you can’t really take the induction in because there’s already so much happening so it just becomes a blur.
Who helped you when you were in prison?
You could always get a bit of information from the guards but most of what you actually learn comes from the other prisoners because the way things are in prison you can’t really be seen to be getting pally with the guards because in the long term it will make life more difficult for yourself.
What would you change about prison?
Just in case things don’t get through because of what’s going round in your head when you first go in, they give it a few more days after the first induction and they get that person back in again and take them through it again and they say, just in case your brain was so overloaded the first time, we’re going to take you through it again to let you know how it works and that and how to get along in prison.
What about being on remand?
Part of the difficulty for me was with being on remand you don’t get a cell wage or anything so if you’re like me and you smoke, you don’t have money for tobacco so you’re always on the scrounge so it’d be nice to see some help for people who are on remand to get money to pay for things.
What was it like coming out of prison?
I've spent a bit of time improving myself and found it difficult when I came out where I suffer from depression plus when I've been in prison I started to suffer from anxiety attacks. Most difficult in readjusting for me was, when it was my first offence and first time in prison and part of what hit me was the people that used to speak to me all the time and say hello and they blanked and walked straight past and when I was actually in prison I wasn’t informed that things like that could happen, I didn’t even think about things like that I didn’t realise how much that hit me at the time.
What help did you get when you left prison?
Well with me it was contacting the criminal justice worker, getting a criminal justice worker sorted out and getting referred to Cornerstone.
How did you get in touch with them?
It's from someone that I knew where I’ve done charity work. For years I used to work on a soup van on a Saturday. Passing out bags of sandwiches and that to the homeless and people who are struggling, there I bumped into and he suggested Criminal Justice to me and gave me their telephone number and told me where they were so I could go along or ring and make an appointment to see about getting help.
What would have made it easier coming out of prison?
Before I actually got liberated from prison, I thought to myself, I was 39 years old at the time I’ve always looked after myself, always done my own shopping and everything and I did get a sheet of paper saying did you need help with this, help with that but on the help with shopping and carrying how to work out your money, I’ve always done that it in the past to me that was no problem. I didn’t realise at the time how it’s affected me in the way of anxiety and part of the reason why Nationwide Criminal Justice and Cornerstone was because in the prison all I got was a sheet of paper that said, do you need help with this, do you know how to work money and to me it was yes I know how to do that and where it said do you need mental health help, and I was thinking about how I’d been in the past, I wasn’t thinking about it could actually affect me when I got out. It would have helped me if on the way out I’d got a sheet of numbers that you could call if you found that when you got out found it a struggle because you’re not prepared for things and how people change towards you and how it could affect you. When it comes down to it it affects you in more ways than you think.
Did you have difficulty organising your benefits and housing when you came out of prison?
It’d be helpful to be able to do more about housing. If you’re coming out on a tag, you’ve got to be in at a certain time, so having a place sorted out where you could go with that sort of equipment on. So it’d be nice to be able to speak to the council about a month before you was due to get tagged so you can get the ball rolling to see if you can get a place arranged before you actually get out. Somewhere to go with a tag or conditions. Also where the job centre is so slow in getting your money sorted out they should be able to get you started with signing on and that so things are already going through the system so that you don’t have to wait up to 6 to 8 weeks to get money once you’ve come out. It’d be nice to have it all sorted out and in place and so you’d get one weeks’ benefit when you leave on your way out. It’d be nice to have it sorted so when you come out, that money that you’ve got only has to last you a week, 2 at the most so you’re not waiting up to a couple of months to get your money because how it is at the moment it’s so little money to last for so long which makes life really difficult when you’re liberated.
Did you get the chance to do any courses when you were in prison?
The prison courses I can’t fault them. I did great with mine but the thing is with paperwork that everything is sent to your last address on the system and where they’ve sent some of my papers from the courses I’ve done to that address, I have not received them myself. I’ve never seen them. A good way of working it for the prisoners is if the papers are put into your personal property at the prison so you could pick up your certificates on the way out or actually have them sent from the college to the prison to the prisoner while they’re still there just so you’ve actually got those papers.
Did you get help in prison to plan for courses or work when you got out?
No they didn’t help in that way at all because all they do in prison is say what type of jobs will you be looking for but they don’t ask if you’re thinking about doing any other courses or anything. The thing with prisons at the moment is that once you’re kicked out the gate, you’re on your own basically and that’s not helping people at all. I met some people that wanted to go for different courses but when they’re only out for short periods of time, they start to get the ball rolling, they start finding it difficult and some of us who’ve been in prison a long time have used that time to come off habits like alcohol abuse or drug abuse and by the time things actually get sorted out it’s put them to a point where they’ve gone back to using the drugs or taking the alcohol and they don’t realise that they’re stuck in a vicious circle. They come out and start taking the drugs and alcohol before they’ve had time to sort themselves sorted out properly because of the problems and they just end up back in prison again.
What would you like to happen to help people continue education when they come out of prison?
Having ways to have the people from the colleges, from where you're from, to be able to come in and say that you can apply for courses while you’re in prison, and the colleges can come in and say sorry you’ve not been accepted for this course you need to do another course first or yes you’ve been accepted for the course, it’s all being sorted out and you start the course on such day. Then it might actually help to give more people that are coming out of prison and so they don’t have to sort all that out on the outside which is where they turn to the drugs or the alcohol. So it’s less for them to actually struggle with when they get out instead of coming out of prison and having to sort it out all by themselves and ending up back at square 1.
Do you have any final advice on how to support people with learning difficulties when they are leaving prison?
Well prison staff and care workers should really have closer connection because right now there’s not really any system there for help that I can think of because some people like myself which spent time in, if I was actually given a sheet of numbers on the way out or if I saw someone or in my case from Cornerstone who actually came out and said to me that you might not actually realise it yet but you might need help and support when you been liberated. If you find that you need help here’s a list of numbers that you can contact to get that sort of help. And if it’s given to you on your way out the door, to be given that sheet of numbers so you’ve got it there so if in a day or two’s time you find like I did that you feel that this isn’t right and it’s not helping, that is the point when I realised that I could’ve done with those numbers. And if I was given a sheet with those numbers then I would have called them. Whereas in my case I didn’t have that so I was searching around and trying to find things out and at the same time trying to cope with doing things the best I could. At times it was a struggle and where it had become anxiety attacks with me, I was having to duck round corners in alley ways and it affected me in a physical way as well because several times it started going through my head that I was going to be done for shop lifting but I was fine all the time I was doing the shopping but sometimes I got to the till I started getting sweaty, shaky and in the case of me I kept thinking that I was going to get done for shop lifting they’re going to think I’ve been up to something, where I was actually paying for everything that I bought.
That is the sort of time where I realised I needed that support and at that point I had to search round as I say, and find the support myself and it was just the fact that I've done charity work with homeless people in the past, I bumped into someone I knew and he said that he was on the criminal justice myself. And I asked what are they and where are they based? He gave me their telephone number and the address so I could go inside and say look I’m coping here, help. And that’s where it would have come in handy instead of me trying to carry on and struggling, to have had the telephone numbers when I wasn’t coping and to get the support you need.
Paul's story: life in prison with a learning disability video
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