Prisoners Abroad

I met Pauline Crowe and her dedicated team at the Prisoners Abroad offices in Finsbury Park, London last Friday.

Jayne, Alex and I travelling down for Kathryn’s hen party, arrived at Euston Station at 2.50pm. The offices were only three tube stops away. Fortunately, Alex who lived in London while she was at university was able to negotiate the tube. Jayne and I trailed behind Alex, a tall slim girl with a similar build to Kathryn, carrying our weekend bags and cases.
“Do you think we’d have got on the right tube?” I asked Jayne.
“Of course we would,” Jayne said. “But we would probably be going in the wrong direction.”

After asking about Jon, Pauline explained the problems prisoners have in some of the developing countries, where they are unable to speak the language. They have no one to talk to, nothing to read and live in isolation. The jobs in the prisons are usually given to local prisoners, so they can’t earn money. If their families have disowned them, or haven’t got the financial resources to help them, they have nothing or no one.
“They are the forgotten people,” I said thinking of a comment Dan made.
“That’s where we come in,” Pauline said. “We can get them a small grant to help with necessities such as toilet rolls and soap. In some countries they have to buy their own food. We can give advice on how to get legal assistance.”

She showed us shelves full of donated books. Piles of magazines and newspapers sat waiting, ready to be posted to some individual who has no knowledge of what’s happening on the outside. I shuddered thinking of the misery.

“It’s something that happens to someone else, someone else’s brother, son, partner, no yours,” I said. “It’s only when it lands on your doorstep that you give prisons or prisoners a thought. That’s how I felt. It doesn’t happen to people like me. How wrong can you be?”
“It happens to people right across the board,” Pauline said. “There’s no class distinction.”

I talked to Gareth, who is going to help Jon with his rehabilitation.
“What’s interesting about Jon’s situation,” Gareth said, “is that you expect awful conditions in developing countries, but not in prisons in the USA. His blog has highlighted that.”
“Yes, if you read the first six months of Jon’s blog describing the conditions in Joe Arpaio’s jails: cells crawling with cockroaches; lying in your own sweat in a cell with no air-conditioning in 120 degree temperatures; your body iching with sweat rashes; being fed on food past its sell by date, throw outs from the supermarkets, rotten fruit and suspect meat, you can hardly believe its happening in the richest country in the world. It’s shameful.”

“How is Jon?” Gareth asked.
“He talks about nothing but his release. He has so many plans, but I think he’ll have to take things slowly. Perhaps you could help him with that.”
“Yes, you get excited prisoners thinking they’ll do this and that, but sometimes it’s more difficult. Adjusting to being on the outside can take some time.”
“It’ll be a period of adjustment for us all. But I want him home so much. I can hardly believe I’m even talking about his homecoming after all we’ve been through. That what we’ve been praying for is almost a reality.”

“The thing with Jon,” Pauline said, “is that he wants to come home. He wants to be deported. Many of the prisoners fight it, especially if they’re being deported from the USA to here. Usually their families moved to America when they were young and that’s where they were brought up. They commit a crime over there and get deported back to the UK, where they have no relatives or support. They do everything they can to stop their deportation, even refusing to sign their passports.”

In her office there were four and five cases and bags. I looked at them, thinking of the prisoners who had gone off to find lodgings, relatives or some kind of support.

“Sometimes the relatives in the USA come to the airport and cause a fuss trying to prevent the deportation. That’s why you might not be told which plane Jon is coming home on. You may just get a phone call from an airport to say he’s here.”
“Even though they know he just wants to get home.”
“It depends what the communication is like at the immigration holding centre.”
“What about getting clothes to him?”
“Again you’d have to contact immigration."
“As long as he’s out, I don’t know if he’d care what he wears,” I said, thinking of Jon sat on the plane grinning from ear to ear.

Jayne and Alex listened fascinated by a world far removed.
“Do you get money from the government?” Jayne asked.
“Yes, some, but we have to rely mostly on private donations.”
On the tube to Kathryn’s apartment Jayne said how impressed she was with the quiet dedication of the people we’d met at Prisoners Abroad.
"I'd like to do some fund raising," she said.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara Attwood