Anna Holland, soup thrower: "Prisons are not fit for purpose, but revolution is".
By Anna Holland, from Just Stop Oil. Illustration: Rory Robertson-Shaw
“The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. ”
Prisons expose the very worst of society. I don't mean the people you find behind the razor wire-topped walls; I'm talking about how society sees fit to punish people for their past. Of course, there are some people, in this current system, who have never been, or never will, be able to function in their community. But does that mean they should be locked away and forgotten about? In these cases, aren’t they still human beings who, rather than punishment, need serious help? The people and their pasts that make up the prison population are indicative not of their own individual failures, but of society's failure as a whole. A healthy community should not have to navigate murders, burglaries or assaults.
My time in prison taught me that these people, the stereotypes of the depraved criminal beyond human intervention, are an absolute minority, especially in the women's estate. In these four months, I have made friends for life and, being one of the youngest people at HMP Send (22 when I came in), I've gained about thirty mother figures. We are defined not by our past, but by our humanity and the connections we make.
The prison system will teach you how low a state is willing to go to retain its grip on order. But is our government really succeeding on that front? The short answer is no. If the prison system actually worked, we would not be seeing a recall rate of 73% (only 24% of which are actually due to committing a further offence), and the government would not be scrambling, as they are, to build four new prisons and create 14,000 new prison spaces.
I've been thinking about this a lot while I've been inside. Has prison 'worked' on me? I am privileged to have such a large community backing me, a legal team fighting for me, and a stable home to return to. So my experience will not necessarily be the same as all the women inside with me. However, the thing about prison is that it's such a great equalising force. We are all treated like pawns on a chessboard and condescended to as though we were children. Beat things with the same stick, and they'll start looking identical to you.
An officer asked me the other day, "Do you think you're likely to break the law again now that you've been through the system?"
I could feel my lawyer sweating. Well, the action I took to break the law in the first place was particular in that it was a deliberate political act. Laws that are set up to protect the state (where you'll find more violence and hate than you would here in prison) are not built on morality, or for the good of the community, and deserve to be broken. A damaged piece of machinery is infinitely less important than a destroyed life (despite what the legal system may think). I have no respect for a government that prioritises the acquisition of oily, blood-soaked money over the preservation of human life, and I felt that way before coming to prison.
Despite my political drive, I was still afraid of ending up in this position. Like many, my only knowledge of the prison system came from heavily dramatised TV shows and films. As every horror movie has taught us, it is the monster you can't see, understand or relate to that is the scariest. I have seen the monster; I have understood and survived it. I am not afraid of it any more. If I, with all my privilege, cannot be "reformed", then what hope is there for the people returning to lives of poverty, inequality and abuse?
I survived prison, not just because of the community I have on the outside but because of the family I found inside these grey metal walls. It was not the staff at HMP Bronzefield and then Send who taught me how to live and find purpose in this neglectful system, but the other women. I don't know where I would be today if not for the women who took me under their wing. All the guards are good for in this place is locking the doors, and I firmly believe that if they were not here, the prison would not just continue to run, but would become a place of rehabilitation in the community, rather than of punishment. This is where prison becomes a microcosm of society as a whole; Dostoyevsky knew exactly what he was talking about.
The people in power, be they prison guards or politicians, have remained so as a result of gross abuse of that power. Sure, there are guards who I know would try to help me, and who I can have a laugh with, but as long as the keys jangle in their pockets, they continue to perpetuate the system of harm. As long as the ink drips from the politicians' pens, they remain complicit in the prioritisation of profit over people. Due to the high-profile nature of my action, I was worried I'd meet people less than thrilled by what I had done. I couldn't have been more wrong. There was a great solidarity between all of us, because we are all victims of great injustice. So many people find themselves in this irrevocable position as a result of outdated, unfair laws and judges, who saw stereotypes, not people. We are all so much closer to the cliff edge of incarceration than we realise.
So, yes, prisons absolutely reflect the worst of society, and what the UK prisons expose is that our society, our government, does not value its people. Those who come out of prison stronger than when they went in have managed this in spite of the system, not because of it. Prison has never been, and will never be, the answer, because all it does is continue the cycle of harm that forced people behind bars in the first place.
Anna is 23 years old and at the time of writing was serving a 20-month sentence at HMP Send for throwing a tin of tomato soup at the protected painting of Van Gogh's ‘Sunflowers’ as part of a Just Stop Oil protest. She has since been released.
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