I am humbled by the interest in my previous thread, and thank everyone for their responses. One who replied to me referred to a vulnerable adult on release from prison being left with nowhere to go, cast onto the streets.
He ended up living in a tent, illegally pitched in a park. It raises a profound problem. It also reminded me of a tragedy befalling two men.
Late on a Friday evening, some time after the probation offices were closed, a man with a profound history of inveterate poly substance addiction was finally released from gaol.
He’d made bail earlier that day on a Crown Court application. In retrospect, it was the worse thing that could have happened.
He went through the gate a little after 7pm. No money in his pocket. Fear, uncertainty, and resentment in his heart. The meds he needed for the weekend to sedate him and dull his appetite for smack had not been dispensed.
No one had anticipated he’d be released and no forward planning in the event he might had been considered. The medical wing could not be criticised for that. Such individualised care, anticipating such events, is unrealistic when understaffed.
You can’t keep an inmate inside for his own safety and care if he’s been admitted to bail. That’s false imprisonment. So as he stepped onto the street he had no money and no prophylactic drugs for his anxiety and addiction.
He reverted to type. He made his way to his own people, the sub-culture of addicts, and dealers in the heart of the City. He stole, he begged, he borrowed anything he could get his hands on: spirits, speed, weed, and crack.
Finally, he killed one of his friends with a knife, and stole their stash. The jury rejected manslaughter, his defence based upon involuntary non-insane automatism. He is now serving life for murder.
He didn’t want to kill anyone. He was set up to fail, and abandoned without support to his own, almost feral instincts. His friend’s death was preventable.
It seems to me that we need to rethink the process of release not simply after serving the term, where for long term prisoners, support is provided, but must also consider the short term prisoner, and those who are bailed.
The vicious spite of short-term imprisonment is all too obvious. It is destructive. Too short to rehabilitate or train an inmate, they lose everything: jobs, a place to live, and relationships. Immediate short term custody is the modern ‘Nemesis of Neglect.’
It’s retributive and almost sadistic in its effect. It fosters crime. As for those admitted to bail, often at times of least convenience, without cash, shelter, or meds, and when support is unavailable, this is another potentially disastrous failure.
The man who killed his friend wielded the knife, and may never be released. He armed himself and must pay the price, but did our systemic neglect prime him? Did the failure to support him allow this to happen? Should we not look at our part in this disaster?
If you are an addict, addicted since the age of 12, it is unrealistic to expect them not to relapse. This is not about morality, but neuropsychopharmacology - lack of moral fibre is a convenient, sanctimonious deflection when the brain is subject to heroin’s dominion.
Society is accountable. Government in our name & the public bodies thereunder, cannot dodge the prosaic truth - that my client, in the desperate circumstances that then prevailed, without any support, was cast onto the streets, inevitably to relapse & in stupor killed a man.
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