‘She didn’t mind about the conviction but was concerned I’d never been to a zoo’
Former scholar Carolyn busts some myths about life after release, shares her passion for education’s transformative power and looks ahead to happy new year.
The five years since my release from prison have gone absurdly quickly. My release into the throes of Covid lockdowns enabled me to recover from the prison experience in a time of general uncertainty: it wasn’t just me feeling unsure of the world outside.
I’d been nervous about my re-entry into the community, particularly about meeting new people and forming friendships. Would new people in my life accept me with a conviction?
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Over the last five years I have made a number of new friends, no one at all having a problem with my conviction. Instead, I have faced warm acceptance and empathy that situations such as mine could happen to anyone. Slowly but surely, I have learned to have more faith in others again. I met my partner a couple of years ago and raced to explain the baggage that I come with, just so that I could get the rejection over quickly. She didn’t mind about the conviction but was very concerned that I’d never been to a zoo before. We’re getting married next year.
Looking back from where I am now, it has been such a journey. Throughout my time in prison, we were regularly fed information about what the challenges will likely be on release. I was fortunate to have accommodation sorted and I have an exceptional support network around me, reducing some of the issues that many others face on release.
Sigh of relief
Qualifying for insurance was something that came up time and again. We had it drilled into us that insurance companies can ramp up premiums for people with convictions, pricing us out of many aspects of quotidian life. This is not something that I have experienced. My conviction is still unspent and whilst, naturally, driving offences for example will mean that access to car insurance isn’t straightforward, getting reasonably priced insurance hasn’t been a struggle at all. My partner and I bought a house last year, and with that came the need for house, life, contents insurance etc. I held my breath as we submitted the forms and each time a sigh of relief came moments later, when we’d cleared the eligibility stage and been offered very decent quotes. In my experience, the blanket insurance crisis is no more than a silly prison myth.
Another of those myths is foreign travel. Yes, there are restrictions against this within most licence conditions, but these can be flexible and might dissolve over time with a reasonable and supportive probation officer. I had been told by prison officers that, even after coming off licence, travel would be tricky; a quick Google search is enough to find out that this is rubbish. So far, I’ve travelled to eight European countries (some of those multiple times) entirely without issue. We’re planning our honeymoon to South East Asia and other trips to North and West Africa and, although it’s taken a few years, I can now rest assured that my conviction won’t be getting in the way.
Making a good plan
A regular topic of conversation in prison was ‘What do you miss the most about life outside?’. For me, cooking, trail running and wild swimming were high up my list but more than anything, I missed education. My time in prison did wonders for reducing my ‘To Be Read’ pile, many thanks to my sympathetic and generous parents for bringing new books from my stack to each visit.
However, the Kafkaesque experience inside doesn’t lend itself to enhancing an educational profile. For those with a disrupted education, the availability of Functional Skills qualifications in English and maths is very useful but successfully delivering these courses to reach everyone who needs them is a tall order.
Transition back into the community has the potential to be bumpy but a way to overcome this is by making a good plan: What do you want to do and what do you need to get you there?
I now work for an organisation that supports women with convictions to access education, training and employment opportunities. We so often see women approach us for support with designing a new career path as their conviction means that their previous one is no longer accessible to them. I was in a similar position so turned to the Longford Trust to help with specialising in a new area and was given the exciting opportunity to begin a PhD. For me, studying for a degree isn’t just about rehabilitation. It’s an inspiring and experimental experience. For those I know who have gone to university for the first time after release from prison, it has been entirely transformative.
This Christmas and New Year will be significant for us as we reflect on how far we have come and look towards navigating a new stage of our life: marriage, hopefully children, entirely unchartered territory for us, and certainly an exciting time.
Studying can help people to discover their professional identity and transcend their circumstances, removing them from their interactions with the criminal justice system. If I have one bit of advice for people considering university after prison, it’s to just go for it.
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