Tomorrow I’ve got a legal visit. The first of many. These meetings aren’t small things for me—they’re the beginning of what feels like another war, another fight to prove who I really am against the stack of papers that say otherwise. Every page of my dossier, every paragraph written by people who don’t even know me, is a weapon being used to keep me locked in here.
This visit will be about peeling those lies apart, one by one. Highlighting the false stories, the fake claims, the fabrications probation love to write as if they were gospel. For them, it’s easy—sit at a desk, type a few lines, and suddenly their words become “fact.” But for me, those words are chains. Those reports are the reason I sit here year after year, watching the calendar bleed away my life.
I know how this goes. I’ve been through it too many times. The solicitor will sit across from me, dossier open, pen in hand. We’ll go line by line, and I’ll have to explain how each part is false, twisted, or exaggerated. I’ll have to defend myself against stories I’ve never lived, claims I’ve never made, and conditions I’ve never broken. It’s like fighting a shadow—you can swing all you want, but it’s always there, waiting to suffocate you.
And then there’s the licence conditions. That’s the part that burns the most. Probation dress them up as “protective measures,” but I know what they really are: traps. Designed to catch me out the second I step foot outside these walls. They’re not meant to help me reintegrate, they’re meant to set me up to fail. It’s modern-day entrapment, wrapped up in legal jargon.
I’ve already seen some of the conditions they want to slap on me if I ever walk through those gates. One of them says I can’t return to the area where my family live. My family—the only ones who’ve stood by me for thirty-five years. The people who’ve carried me through my darkest days. They’re not linked to my offence, they’ve got nothing to do with my incarceration, but somehow probation think banning me from them makes sense. They’re my lifeline, my support, my reason to keep pushing forward. To take them away from me is to strip away the last bit of hope I’ve got.
Another condition talks about towns and areas I’m supposedly not allowed to visit. Places that mean nothing to my case, but suddenly, on paper, they’re treated like danger zones. It’s laughable, really. They could write down anywhere, any place at all, and it becomes law for me. Miss a bus and step off in the wrong postcode, and they’ll say I’ve breached my licence. Straight back inside, no questions asked. That’s not rehabilitation. That’s control. That’s slavery in a different uniform.
I’ve heard the same stories from countless others. Lads who finally got parole, thought they were free, only to find themselves tripped up by impossible conditions. Curfews so tight they couldn’t even work a proper job. Areas so restricted they couldn’t visit their kids. Rules so petty it was like being punished all over again, just with a different set of walls. The system doesn’t want us to succeed. They want us back in here, filling beds, justifying budgets.
That’s why this legal visit matters. Because it’s not just about proving who I am—it’s about fighting against a machine designed to keep me locked down no matter what I do.
Tonight, before the meeting, I sit in my cell and think about how much of my future is already written down in that dossier. Words written by strangers, by people who don’t care, by people who’ve never lived a single day behind bars. They don’t know the reality of prison life. They don’t know what it’s like to lose family year after year, to live with the ghosts of your own mistakes, to try and rebuild yourself in a place that was built to break you. But still, they get to decide my fate.
So tomorrow, I’ll go into that room. I’ll sit across from my solicitor, dossier on the table, and I’ll fight. I’ll point out the lies, expose the contradictions, rip apart the fabrications. Because if I don’t, nobody else will. If I stay quiet, their story becomes the truth. And I refuse to let that happen.
This isn’t rehabilitation. This isn’t justice. This is survival.
The morning of the visit comes, and already I can feel the weight in my chest. It’s strange, how after all these years, you still get nerves over things like this. I’ve faced fights, lockdowns, riots, stabbings—you name it. But walking into a room with paperwork that decides your future? That still makes my stomach twist.
They call my name over the tannoy, and I make my way down. The corridors smell of bleach and damp, like always. Every screw I pass gives me the same blank look, like they know but don’t care. To them, it’s just another appointment. To me, it’s my life on the line.
When I get into the visit room, my solicitor’s already there. She’s got a stack of papers in front of her—my dossier. The pile looks thicker than ever. Every page a piece of my history, written not by me, but about me. Written by strangers, liars, and “professionals” who wouldn’t last a week behind these walls.
We sit down. She doesn’t waste time with small talk, she just opens the folder and starts. And that’s when it begins—the tearing apart of my so-called profile.
The first page is some psychological assessment, full of buzzwords and empty phrases: “risk factors,” “concerns,” “limited progress.” I can’t help but laugh, bitterly. Limited progress? I’ve done every course they’ve shoved in front of me. I’ve kept my head down, avoided trouble, even mentored younger lads coming in. But all that gets ignored. Instead, they write what fits their narrative.
We move on to the probation reports. Same story. Fabrications dressed up as facts. Things like “he remains connected to criminal associates.” Who? Name one. They can’t, because there aren’t any. I’ve cut all ties to that life. The only people I’m connected to are my family, and yet here they are trying to paint me as someone waiting to reoffend the second I walk free.
I feel the anger bubbling up, but I have to keep it controlled. Getting angry won’t change the words on the page. So I explain, calmly, point by point, why it’s wrong. My solicitor listens, takes notes, nods. She’s good—one of the few who actually gives a damn—but even she admits how hard it is to get these lies corrected. Once it’s written, it sticks.
Then we reach the licence conditions. My hands clench before she even starts reading them out. No contact with family in certain areas. Restrictions on travel. Curfews so strict they’d make holding a job nearly impossible.
One condition even says I’m not to be in “unsupervised contact with minors.” My solicitor pauses before reading it out, because she knows how much that one cuts. My great-nieces and nephews—they’ve grown up without me. And now, even if I get out, this condition would mean I can’t even hold them, can’t sit in the same room with them, without it being seen as a breach.
The funny thing is, my offence isn’t even against minors. Never has been. So why is probation making these stories up? Why create conditions that have no connection to the truth, no connection to my actual offence? It’s just another way to twist the knife, to keep me further away from the little family I have left. Another fabrication added to the pile, another reason to set me up for failure.
That’s when it hits me again—this system doesn’t want me to live. It wants me to exist under constant threat, one slip away from being dragged back inside. Freedom with a leash so tight it chokes.
The meeting goes on for hours. By the end, my head’s pounding, but I’ve said my piece. I’ve exposed the lies, highlighted the fabrications, shown where probation twisted the truth. Will it make a difference? I don’t know. I’ve been through this enough times to know that sometimes it doesn’t matter how strong your arguments are—the system always has the last word.
When I’m escorted back to my cell, dossier still on my mind, I sit on the bed and stare at the wall. The noise of the wing carries on outside—lads shouting, screws banging doors—but I barely hear it. All I can think about is how much of my life is trapped inside those pages, how much of my future depends on people I’ll never truly know.
And I realise something: tomorrow, next week, next month—it’ll all be the same battle. Because for men like me, parole isn’t about proving we’ve changed. It’s about proving we can survive a system built to see us fail.
No comments:
Post a Comment