Six years on, I’m still doing my time. The days don’t change—they just stack up on top of each other until you lose track of when one ends and the next begins. The pain’s the same as it was yesterday, and the day before that. Time doesn’t heal anything in here—it just freezes it. I think constantly about the losses I’ve had. They don’t drift away like they do for people on the outside. In here, they loop in your head like a broken tape.
And I know—deep down—that when I do finally get out, that’s when it’s going to smash into me like a train—the realisation that I’ll never see my dad again. That I can’t just pick up the phone and hear his voice. I won’t see his face, his smile, or hear the way he used to laugh at his own bad jokes. People talk about “closure” like it’s a thing you can get. In here, there’s no such thing. There’s no rehabilitation for that kind of loss.
Truth be told, there’s no rehabilitation for anything in here. It’s all a show. A load of glossy brochures and carefully worded reports to make the public feel like the system is fixing people. In reality? It’s smoke and mirrors. They run courses that teach you how to answer questions in a way that sounds “rehabilitated” but doesn’t actually change a thing. At the end of the day, prisons are just human warehouses—storage facilities for bodies. Modern-day slavery camps.
The only thing they’re rehabilitating is the government’s bank balance. The system runs on heads in beds. Every occupied cell is worth money—contracts, staffing budgets, funding streams. That’s the real business model. Justice has nothing to do with it.
And I want to talk about the silent killer in here—suicide. It’s the shadow that follows you down every landing. People think it’s only the weak who take their own lives. They’re wrong. I’ve seen the strongest lads crack. Seen them carry themselves like steel for years, then just… snap. No warning, no signs—until you hear the shout, the rush of boots, and then it’s too late.
I’ve had my own run-ins with it. I’ve had days when the walls felt like they were closing in, when the thought of another year—another month—was too heavy to carry. And I’ve had staff put blades in my hand and tell me to “crack on” if I wanted to do it. That’s the level of care. That’s the attitude. You’re not a person to them. You’re barely even a number. You’re a problem they’d rather see disappear than deal with.
They pretend to care. They’ll pull you into a little interview room, nod their heads, say “We take your wellbeing seriously.” But I’ve seen the way they look at their watches, already thinking about their next tea break. I’ve watched them laugh and joke minutes after finding someone hanging in their cell.
They talk about family ties like it’s the magic key to turning your life around. They print leaflets about how important it is to stay connected. But here’s the truth—they don’t actually care. If they did, they wouldn’t keep me locked up nearly 500 miles from my family. My loved ones struggle to visit because of the distance and the cost. And the prison? They don’t lift a finger to move me closer. Why? Because they don’t care.
Like I said, we’re not even nobodies—we’re just numbers on a spreadsheet. And spreadsheets don’t have feelings. They don’t have grief. They don’t have sleepless nights where you stare at the ceiling wondering if you’ll survive another year in this place.
And then there’s parole. As a discretionary lifer, I get a parole board every two years. For the last twenty-seven years, it’s been the same routine. You stand in front of them already knowing you’re going to be knocked back. You can feel it in the air. You’re not there to be given a chance—you’re there to tick their boxes while they quietly set you up to fail.
Take my current probation officer. I don’t even know her, and she doesn’t know me. Yet somehow, she’s written a report saying I’m not allowed in the area where my family live. Think about that—for thirty-seven years, no other probation officer has ever said that. But now, suddenly, if I get out, I can’t even visit my own family.
My family has nothing to do with my offence or my incarceration. They are my lifeline. My support. My rock. And this probation officer wants to cut that away from me before I’ve even walked out the gate. That’s what I mean when I say they set us up to fail before we’ve even had a chance.
Like I’ve said before—probation officers like this aren’t here to help. They’re fabricators, pure and simple. They’re here for the paycheque, nothing else. And if there truly was such a thing as rehabilitation, don’t you think I’d have been out a long time ago?
And I’ll tell you what a parole hearing really feels like—because most people have no idea.
You walk into that room and the first thing you notice is the silence. Not the peaceful kind—this is a heavy silence, the kind that sits on your shoulders. Three people usually sit behind a desk. They’ve got your whole life spread out in front of them in a thick folder—pages and pages of reports, statements, assessments. Half of it’s made up. The other half is twisted to make you look worse than you are.
There’s always water on the table, but it’s for them, not you. You sit in a chair that’s just slightly too low, like they’ve measured it that way on purpose, so you’re looking up at them the whole time. Makes you feel smaller. Makes them feel bigger.
The chair of the panel will glance at you over their glasses like they already know what the decision is. They’ll start with something like, “Frankie, thank you for coming today. We’re here to consider whether you are suitable for release…” But you already know it’s not happening. You can feel it.
They’ll bring up every mistake you’ve made in the last thirty years. Even ones you’ve explained before. Even ones you’ve already done time in seg for. They’ll read out bits of your probation report—like the one my current probation officer wrote—saying I can’t go anywhere near my family. And when you try to speak, to tell them your side, they nod politely but their pens don’t move.
Sometimes they’ll ask about your “risk factors” or your “offence-related work.” That’s parole-speak for Do we think you might do it again? But the truth is, they’ve already decided. You could say all the right words, smile at all the right times, and they’d still find a reason to keep you in.
The worst part is the waiting. After you’ve said everything you can say, they tell you they’ll send the decision in writing. Which means you go back to your cell and sit there for days, sometimes weeks, until a screw slides that envelope through the flap. You can tell by the thickness whether it’s a yes or a no. The no’s are always thin.
I’ve had so many no’s over the years, I can almost smell them before I open the envelope. The paper feels colder in your hand. You read the words—“The panel is not satisfied that you can be safely managed in the community at this time”—and it’s like your chest caves in.
And then it’s over. You’ve got another two years to wait before you get to do the same dance again. Another two years of pretending that if you just keep your head down, tick all their boxes, it might be different next time.
But deep down, you know. It won’t be.
The hours after a parole knock-back are the hardest. You get that envelope, you read those words, and for a moment everything inside you just… stops. You can hear the background noise of the wing—doors slamming, screws shouting—but it’s distant, muffled, like you’ve gone underwater.
Some lads tear the letter up straight away. Some chuck it in the bin without reading the reasons. Me? I always read it. Every single word. Even when I know it’s going to be the same old rubbish—“lack of progress,” “insufficient risk reduction,” “further work needed on victim empathy.” The same recycled phrases they’ve been using for decades. They could save time by photocopying the last decision and changing the date.
When you get back to your cell, it’s quiet. Too quiet. That’s when the thoughts start circling like vultures. You start thinking about how many more years you’ll be in here. How many more Christmases you’ll spend staring at the back of a steel door. How many more funerals you’ll miss.
The first night after a knock-back is always the longest. Sleep doesn’t come easy. You lie there, staring at the ceiling, and the cell feels smaller somehow. Like the walls have moved in an inch. Your mind plays tricks on you—you start hearing your family’s voices, seeing their faces in your head, then realising you can’t touch them, can’t be there. That’s when the darkness really creeps in.
You tell yourself you’ve been here before, that you can ride it out like you always do. But there’s a little voice in the back of your head that whispers, What’s the point? That voice is dangerous. I’ve seen it swallow people whole. One day they’re walking the yard, laughing, making plans for the next visit. The next day, they’re gone.
And the staff? They carry on like nothing happened. Someone dies, they lock the place down for a couple of hours, write up a report, and then it’s back to normal. No grief counselling, no real support. Just another statistic on the prison’s books.
After a few days, you force yourself back into the routine—gym, work, bang-up, repeat. Not because you feel better, but because there’s nothing else to do. Routine’s the only thing that keeps you from falling apart completely. But the knock-back sits in your gut like a stone. And you know, in two years’ time, you’ll be sat in that same chair in that same room, playing that same rigged game.
People on the outside say the system’s broken. That it needs fixing. But from where I’m sitting, it’s not broken at all—it’s working exactly the way they want it to.
Prison isn’t about rehabilitation. It’s not about preparing you for release. It’s about keeping you here. Keeping the beds full. Keeping the money flowing. They call it “public protection,” but that’s just the sell. The truth is, prisons are a business, and business is good when people don’t get out.
Every parole knock-back, every fake probation report, every unnecessary transfer hundreds of miles from your family—it’s all part of the same machine. And once you’re inside it, it grinds you down, year after year, until you either give up or you break.
And me? Thirty-five years on, I’m still here. Still breathing. Still fighting. But I know the game’s rigged. I know they’ve got no intention of letting me out until they’re good and ready.
That’s the reality no one on the outside wants to talk about. The headlines talk about “justice” and “public safety,” but they never print the truth. They never talk about what really goes on behind these walls.
And I’m not done telling it. Not by a long shot.
When Part Three is released, it will be about the upcoming parole. I’m currently in the window waiting for it—the interviews with the so-called professionals, the same old questions, the same tired game.
But don’t worry, we’ll keep you updated with Part 3 and our other stories about life in prison.
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