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Are You A Prisoner of Your Own Mind?

When I first started working in prison running groups, I would ask the men what their challenges were. There were many, finding housing, finding jobs, staying on the right path, reconnecting with their children, finding peace of mind. It didn’t matter how many people I asked, there would always be one challenge common to all: finding peace of mind. It’s what we all want isn’t it? No matter how we try to get it, through providing for our families, or being the best at what we do. No matter what life has thrown at us, no matter what we’ve done, no matter what labels we wear, it seems to me that we all want peace, happiness and security. We just try to get those things in different ways.

Sometimes, the harder we try, the further away the goal gets. Why is that?

“I feel freer now than I’ve ever felt in my life, and I’ve still got three years to serve”. DS said. We were sitting in a circle on the hard-backed black chairs, in the group room on K Wing at HMP Onley. A big picture of a map of the world on one wall. The warm summer sunshine slid through the razor wire into the room. I could hear pigeons cooing on their makeshift nest on the windowsill. DS sat at the back of the room rocking on his chair. Long legs in Armani jeans, stretched out in front of him, big hands holding onto the chair legs as he made his statement. “Tell us more,'' I said.

DS told us how he had lived a life tormented by his own negative thoughts, by trauma and by PTSD. He had caused a lot of pain and a lot of damage to others. He believed himself to have no empathy, he’d believed the labels he had worn inwardly and outwardly (he did like a good Armani outfit!) Then one day he’d had a new thought, something that hadn’t occurred to him before.

We are not aware of it but we often get new thought. Fresh thought out of nowhere that we haven’t heard before. But we also tend to ignore it. Everyone can see something new about their situation at any moment. Because situations are not fixed. They can be viewed differently depending on the perspective we have.

Have you ever thought about something one way and then had a change of mind when you got a new perspective?

“I realised I had a choice,” DS said. In a single moment DS realised that he had a choice and he saw this from within his own mind. You see we are all walking around thinking that we are living in and coping with a reality that is ‘out there’. When in fact in each moment we are creating a reality from within our own minds.

Now I don’t mean that the thing you are looking at right now doesn’t exist. What I mean is, HOW we see the world is being created in our own minds from moment to moment, and THAT is the thing that can change. Thought is a power that we all have. A Superpower. One that can make us feel all the emotions and feelings that it’s possible for a human being to have. But we don’t realise that we have this Superpower, so we let it have its wicked way with us.

For example, if you feel lonely it’s because you are having a lonely thought, at that moment. Think about when you’ve felt lonely and then something on the TV made you laugh. You may have forgotten the lonely feeling for a minute, and you may have gone straight back to it after the laugh. BUT the point is that moment by moment we are only ever experiencing our own minds!

So, what’s all this got to do with freedom even when you’re in prison?

Here’s a snippet from a blog that one of the Beyond Recovery facilitators, Paul Lock, wrote after his first group:

“Walking into a prison environment, having never been before, is eye opening in many ways. But more than anything, I have found it to be a humbling and profound experience. Big men with even bigger hearts. I have come to realise that whether we are free or incarcerated behind fences with razor wire, walls with iron gates. We are all up against the same thing - the confines and trickery of our minds!

During the same week as this prison session, I had been working with a senior executive. He is extremely successful, respected and has gained seniority in a corporate environment. Along with this, he has a beautiful home in a beautiful area, a great social life and a wonderful wife, soon to be starting a family. He couldn't fathom why, with all his success and achievements, he didn't feel great - why he didn't get out of bed in the morning with a smile on his face! Life just wasn't feeling right; he was beginning to question his career choice, relationship and purpose in life.

Within days of this encounter I am sitting in a prison working with a group of men who are on a drug and alcohol rehabilitation programme. What struck me was the similarity between the executive and the inmates. What I found fascinating was how they shared a common dissatisfaction and confusion about life and themselves.

So, does our circumstance and environment have anything to do with our happiness? Move forward a few weeks and after spending time with both the executive and the group of men, they have changed profoundly. They are happy, light-hearted and engaged. Yet the only thing that has changed is their appreciation of their mind and an understanding of how it works, with absolutely no change in any circumstance.

It is clear that the circumstance and environment we find ourselves in has simply nothing to do with how happy we are. Our happiness is determined by how we view and understand ourselves moment by moment. As our thoughts change so do our feelings, and as our feelings change so do our circumstances. It is this simplicity that is all too easy to overlook.”

Jacqueline Hollows FRSA, is the founder of Beyond Recovery. Empowering people with lived experience of prison to find their true potential. For more information contact info@beyond-recovery.co.uk.

*This piece was first published in Insidetime June 2020

Have you ever wondered why some days you wake up inspired and motivated and other days you can’t get out of bed? Have you ever considered that our own minds can be our worst enemy or our most powerful tool? Well, those are some of the questions we reflect on all the time with our participants in groups. My name is Jacqueline Hollows, I’m the founder of Beyond Recovery (BR) a social enterprise that teaches a Free Minds Programme to people in prison and professionals in the Criminal Justice System.

I used to be head of an operations team in Leeds, I even have a masters degree in Networking & Management! And then when the markets crashed in 2010 and I found myself redundant and unable to keep up the lifestyle I was accustomed to I started to look for something more meaningful, something that could fulfil my soul, something I could believe in. I got myself retrained in counselling and Neuro-Linguistic Programming and even as a life coach, but I still couldn’t find the thing that made my heart sing. And then I found an understanding called the ' Three Principles' and started noticing how my life seemed to get easier!

I started working in the community with people with addictions and then got invited to run programmes on this approach to residents in HMP Onley. I had become passionate about ending mental suffering and stigma and started working with groups of men sharing with them some simple truths about how our experience is created from our minds and not from circumstances. The groups went well and in no time the positive impact of some of the guys meant that we ended up with a waiting list of 90+ people! We also started training peer mentors and getting them to run groups with us. Some of those men are now released and continue to volunteer and take part in our Beyond Programmes.

THE ORIGINS OF THE APPROACH

The approach we use was uncovered by a man called Sydney Banks in 1975. ‘Syd’ was a normal bloke with a standard education from Scotland, who had moved to Salt Spring Island, off the coast of Canada, with his wife and two children and started work as a welder. Syd was reasonably happy but was dogged by the usual insecurities and pettiness we all get involved in. Sometimes moaning about other people and the lot that life had given them. Then one day all of this changed. Syd and his wife were on a retreat for couples and he was walking with a psychologist, moaning about how insecure he was. The psychologist said, “you are not insecure Syd, you just think you are” and Syd had a ‘lightbulb moment’. A flash of light hit him, and he saw deeply that people use the power of thought against themselves by innocently taking what they are thinking seriously. Syd went on to have many more ‘lightbulb moments’ like these and was soon experiencing a deep and profound sense of peace.

Over the next few months Syd found a deep joy in life and all his insecurities dropped away. He had ‘an enlightenment experience’ and he saw that instead of trying to fix people by looking at their symptoms that we should be looking at their health. He realised that all people have their own solutions when their minds get quiet and they ‘look inside’; and he saw that we all have the power to open our minds to a different level of consciousness.

BEYOND RECOVERY’S METHODS

Until the recent ‘lock down’ we were delivering our Free-Minds programme to people in prison through group sessions over a period of three days or 10 weeks. The groups would consist of two or three BR facilitators and a group of about 12 residents. We don’t ‘teach’ people, we assist them with waking up to their true nature and potential by talking about what is universally true for all human beings, i.e. that we have the Power of Thought; that we have Awareness and so can experience life; and that we are connected to something beyond our own personal mind: the essence of life. Unlike other methods, our approach is to have each person re-discover the health that we are born with that never gets damaged. The diamond inside.

STAYING CONNECTED

We really appreciate the extra pressure people are under during COVID-19, especially those in prison but we have not been able to get into prison to run our groups. So our small but dedicated team of facilitators and volunteers have pulled together to help people to stay connected and supported, despite the Covid-19 restrictions. We’ve written personal weekly letters to every individual who is assigned to our programmes and created Beyond Packs each week containing a mixture of relevant reading materials, learning activities, inspiring quotes, colouring and word searches.  

CONTINUING IMPACT

We often have visitors to our groups, this one time the guy visiting was really nervous about coming into prison but when he was in the group he was humbled by the wisdom and depth he experienced with our guys. He later described the group as ‘like sitting with a group of philosophers’. Every week we see people waking up to their true nature and realising that they have so much more potential than what they have been conditioned to think.

  As one of our participants says “When you are not in the content of your thinking you are in space, and when you are in space you have freedom. Freedom is not a place, it is a state of mind, and it is available to everyone wherever they are.”  

  This is the first in a series of articles and over the coming months we will be talking about how to find freedom even in prison; how our experience of life really works; myths of personalities and what habits really are.

For more information or how to get a Beyond Pack contact info@beyond-recovery.co.uk

The 21st to the 28th of November 2021 marks #RestorativeJusticeWeek and we’ve teamed up with Make Amends (Shekinah) who deliver Restorative Justice in Devon and Cornwall to understand more about what it is, and how it can benefit those we work with.

So, what is Restorative Justice?

Restorative Justice or RJ supports people who have been affected by crime, conflict, anti-social behaviour, or harm caused by the actions of others. Restorative Justice creates opportunities for people who have been harmed to come together into communication with those who are responsible for that harm, to get answers to their questions and to explain the effect the incident has had on them. It gives those who accept responsibility for the harm an insight into the real impact their actions have had on the person affected, their friends and family or the community. The process aims to help everyone move on.    

Make Amends, the Restorative Justice Service commissioned by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall has a team of paid practitioners and volunteer practitioners. They work with adults, children, and families across various crime types from low-level crime to serious and violent crime and complex cases. They also work on cases involving conflict, anti-social behaviour, and non-reported crime. Practitioners will work on a case for as long as needed, whether it’s a few weeks or if it takes several years. They also complete RJ work for historical crimes and incidences.

How does it work?

Following receipt of a referral to Make Amends, RJ Practitioners are assigned to the case. Preparation then takes place with both the harmed and the harmer. During the preparation it’s decided whether restorative justice will be facilitated with both parties via a face-to-face conference or by another means. RJ can be delivered in several ways, this can include telephone or video conferencing, written correspondence, and ‘shuttle restorative justice’ through the Practitioners - these approaches may or may not lead to a face-to-face meeting at a later stage.

The process enables those harmed to explain to the person(s) who caused the harm the impact the incident had on them and others around them. The person who caused the harm has an opportunity to explain what was happening for them before, during and after the incident. At this point, an apology might be offered by the person who caused the harm. An opportunity is then created for a reparative agreement or rehabilitative activity for the harmer if appropriate e.g., paying to repair any material damage, working for free for a charity, or keeping the person harmed informed of any future progress the harmer makes. It’s also discussed what they would do if they were to see each other again in future. Participants are fully supported throughout the process, and if helpful, they can bring a supporter with them to help with their journey.

How can Restorative Justice benefit those who access bthechange?

As two organisations working together, we are very much aware of the impact on those entering the criminal justice system and the importance of early intervention and support. We also recognise the value of enabling those in the criminal justice system to move forward with their lives to avoid further negative results.

bthechange participants may want to consider accessing Restorative Justice to help them move forward from a particular incident. Likewise, it’s often found that they themselves may have been harmed by others in the past and could benefit from Restorative Justice to move on from historical incidences of harm. Make Amends also works within families and can provide support where conflict has formed as an effect of entering the criminal justice system.

Our hope is that by working collaboratively together, Restorative Justice can be a service accessed by those at bthechange to bring about positive change.

What’s next?

If you’d like to find out more about Restorative Justice, there is information available on the Make Amends website. This includes an FAQ that addresses common questions and misconceptions about RJ. You can also watch videos of their participants sharing lived experiences of RJ.

We’d encourage you to discuss Restorative Justice with your bthechange worker and consider making a referral direct to Make Amends via their website or by calling 01803 222033.

Follow Make Amends on social @makeamendsrj

We see so much coverage of “Prison Life” on our TV’s these days, whether we’re watching the soaps, any of those detective programs, or old re-runs of Porridge. And whilst they all hold some truths about what goes on behind bars, one statistic that doesn’t get covered is the percentage of people in prisons with a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). The causes of a TBI can vary, the main cause being accidents like falls or vehicle collisions, but also sports injuries, exposure to harsh chemicals, explosion impact waves, and assault.

The University of Glasgow conducted research that 66% of women in prisons reported having some kind of head injury, 89% of which said Domestic Violence was the cause. The sad reality is there is probably even more that have gone unnoticed or undiagnosed because some people are either too afraid to speak up or just accept violence as a part of the prison experience, of which it’s not. A few other studies have been conducted, mostly in the US, and whilst percentages of inmates with some sort of head or brain injury vary, one thing that is for sure is that there is always a bigger percentage for persons in prison in comparison to persons who have not been through the criminal justice system.

So why is this?

Well, unfortunately brain injuries are often more than just physical damage but can have lasting psychological damage too. Mental health issues and personality disorders are common among people with TBI, which then makes the person at higher risk of breaking the law. That is not to say they will, and in fact most people with mental health or personality disorders lead fairly normal, law-abiding lives, but it is one more factor that could potentially push someone into the wrong side of the law. Of the 66% of female Scottish prisoners with a head injury, 40% also had associated disabilities.

From a general 2017 Scottish Prisoner Survey, 39% of prisoners said they were drunk when they broke the law and 38% said they were under the influence of drugs, both of which of course could alter your brain, temporarily and permanently. 30% of female prisoners said they committed a crime for money for drugs, 20% committed a shoplifting offence and 43% said they did not know where they would live upon release. Looking at these numbers, you have to wonder of the exact circumstances that lead to these crimes, which for a great majority would no doubt be desperation or escapism from abuse- from partners, loan sharks or other moneylenders, people being aggressive at them for being homeless, or any other tragic life events of which might have caused some serious injury.

These facts and figures may be focused on Scotland, but there is no doubt that if the same survey was conducted throughout England, it would yield similar results. The University of Exeter did a self-report survey on male prisoners in Exeter, and of 196 participants, 64% had some sort of TBI, and those that did were typically younger upon entry to the system.

When you’ve never been involved in the wrong side of the law, you don’t often give a thought to the motivation of a crime; just boom, that person must be a wrong ‘un for doing that. But here at bthechange, we see the potential in people, we know that sometimes there are explanations; it doesn’t make it acceptable, but we know it doesn’t mean that the person causing offence is a “bad person”. Life is complicated, there are a multitude of reasons for people doing what they do, but we’re dedicated to helping people get back on track to achieving their potential, to help them rebuild their lives and start off from a better position they entered the system in.

Hope| Motivation | Action | Change

External sources and further reading.

Head injuries suffered by 80% of women prisoners - BBC News

Traumatic Brain Injury Among Prisoners.pdf (brainline.org)

https://www.sccjr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/7-Scotlands-prison-population.pdf

Why Women Scotland.pdf (prisonreformtrust.org.uk)

Traumatic brain injury in a prison population | Headway

Traumatic Brain Injury in Prisons and Jails (cdc.gov)

United Kingdom: Scotland | World Prison Brief (prisonstudies.org)

You! Stop right there! You’re being arrested; you do not have to say anything but it may harm your entire life if, when questioned in front of a news reporter, you mention or do something that may dampen your public image, and anything you do say or do will be held against you on public-accessible records for the rest of your life.

In this new technology age, we perhaps consider the impact of digital journalism far more than we did even just 10 years ago, so it’s no surprise that for some, one of their biggest anxieties upon arrest is the digital scars this will leave on their public profile. Newspapers, journalists, and reporters might name you from as soon as you’re arrested; so before you’re even proven guilty. This record of you can then circulate indefinitely.

However, this is countered by a stipulation in the GDPR Policy called The Right To Be Forgotten (Or The Right To Erasure). The rules are open for some interpretation, but as a general rule of thumb; when you have spent your conviction, you have the right to legally request search engines to remove online search results of your arrest, conviction or court sentence when someone Googles your name. This is because it is no longer knowledge of the benefit of the public’s interest, so it becomes irrelevant. Removing the search results does not remove them from the individual website that it was published on, but it does mean that if a future employer were to do their own background search on you, they wouldn’t find any skeletons. And they shouldn’t be allowed to.

When you’re convicted of a crime, you’re given a period of time, spanning between months and years, wherein you have what’s known as an “unspent” criminal conviction or a “rehabilitation period”. The length is determined based on the nature of your crime and whether or not you’re under 18. This is, however, increased if you go to prison for your crime, and your unspent conviction will only start once you leave prison. Once this period of time is up, your conviction is then known as “spent”. The most severe crimes never get spent though, such as murder. So how does that affect you? Well, when your sentence is unspent, you are legally required to disclose information of your conviction with employers, insurers and housing personnel when asked about it, and unfortunately it may affect the outcome. When your sentence is spent, you no longer have to disclose this information, however it will still appear if they do an Advanced DBS check. If they do a Basic DBS, it will not. If it’s not legally required to provide information of spent criminal convictions, it should not be provided by an underhand Google search either.

Many still question the way in which DBS functions; should it be fair that a petty crime you committed years, decades even, ago, still show up on your record? Fairchecks believe this is unjust and are campaigning for the government to completely rewrite the DBS system so that it no longer picks up certain past convictions if they are long spent and/or fairly inconsequential. Their campaign encourages people to contact their local MP’s about it.

There is hope for persons wishing to turn their lives around after being convicted. This is thanks to the Ban The Box movement, in which employers sign up to remove the tick box that asks about criminal convictions from the application form. www.Bitc.org.uk have a full list of employers who have signed up. The purpose of the movement is to remove the prejudice against persons who have had convictions and give them a fairer chance at getting the job.

The only way people can reform and get back their lives is if the world gives them a chance. They can’t do it if they’re up to their eyeballs in over-priced insurance and can’t get a job because of a few bad life choices. The world is still grossly unfair for persons who have entered the criminal justice system, but we are very hopeful that with the help of movements such as Ban the Box, Fairchecks, The Right To Be Forgotten & Unlock we are moving in the right direction.

You can read more about the movements here:

Unlock- https://www.unlock.org.uk/projects/employment-discrimination/ban-the-box/

The Right To Be Forgotten- https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/

Fairchecks- https://www.fairchecks.org.uk/

Hope| Motivation | Action | Change

Whilst standing at the Devon County Show, in the pouring rain, surrounded by the likes of the NHS, CHAT and YMCA, I couldn’t help but feel insignificant. Not because the work of bthechange isn’t as helpful to communities as theirs is, but because nobody knows who we are.

It’s okay, because before working for bthechange, I had never heard of them either, and unless you or anyone close to you has had an experience with the Criminal Justice System in the last 5 years, you’re not likely to have heard of us.

In short, that’s exactly what we do: bthechange is a community interest company who help those who find themselves entering the Criminal Justice System, particularly, but not limited to, if they’re entering for the first time. We believe strongly in giving those individuals the support they need to take responsibility for their actions and move forward with their lives and integrate back into society. bthechange supports individuals at every step of the Criminal Justice journey and we encourage people to contact us as near to arrest as possible. We believe that early intervention is key to helping individuals move forward with their lives.

Community

But what do we actually do? What does help from bthechange actually look like?

Well, at the early stages, it can involve talking to you and your family about what to expect, ensuring that your health and wellbeing is being catered for.

We explain the full picture and tell you what to expect from the Criminal Justice process, thus preparing you for every step of the process. Members of our team have first-hand lived experience, they know the questions they’d have wanted answers to when they were in your position, the things that tv shows or news articles don’t cover.

Custody

At the prison stage, we have a free phone line implemented at HMP Eastwood Park Women’s Prison in Gloucester, as well as phone access for individuals at HMP Exeter & HMP Dartmoor. For all the prisons we work with, we offer regular mentoring meetings, we visit prison wings (COVID-permitting), we can securely bring in clothing, chase up internal and external services. We keep in close contact with you throughout your time and can liaise between services, family, and legal professionals, if needed.

Education

We even deliver a programme to schools about the repercussions of getting yourself involved in the Criminal Justice System, led by paid individuals who have experienced it, and we also work with victims of crime who speak to the pupils as well. Again, our intention here is to intervene as early as possible, because no doubt some pupils may already be displaying antisocial behaviour, but we aim to make them challenge that in themselves.

No Exit Plan

And don’t think we’re going to leave you there. Your ticket of freedom does not mean we won’t be interested in helping you once it’s Leaving Day. We will help you exit as smoothly as possible. We have a safe space where we can take you for a coffee and breakfast, we can make phone calls to family, friends, Universal Credit, accommodation, Probation, we can check transport times, help with prescriptions, we can arrange taxis if needed. We can give you toiletries if needed, we can provide you an outfit to leave prison in because yes, shockingly, some people only have the outfit that they’re arrested in, which may not be appropriate attire, especially if the weather has drastically changed. And when you’re ready to step back into the wide world, we can still stay in contact. We will support you for as long as you need, even if that’s just a phone call here and there to see how you’re doing.

Ethical Outcomes

bthechange is determined to help keep rates of re-entry into the Criminal Justice System low by helping people to overcome their biggest obstacles and potential risks, which often is just not having any sort of support system in their lives. We can’t perform miracles, regrettably, and of course not everyone is going to accept our help and make that change in their life, but we certainly try our best to help wherever we can. We know that if you leave in the exact same position, you came in from, you’ll never beat the vicious cycle.   Some of the services we provide seem like basic human rights or essentials, but unfortunately no system is perfect, not even the Criminal Justice System, so we try to fill the gaps they leave. We currently work with over 3000 people a year throughout the Southwest of England, and work with some great organisations who we have shared values with, such as:

The Nelson’s Trust - https://nelsontrust.com

Women’s Centre Cornwall - https://www.womenscentrecornwall.org.uk

CASS Plus - http://www.cassplus.org

Konnect Communities - https://www.konnect-communities.co.uk

EDP - https://www.edp.org.uk

The Future

This may come as a shock, but I wish we as a company were not needed. I wish we didn’t exist, because the majority of what we do are things that you would assume already happen, but the sad reality is that with incarceration costing the UK taxpayer £18 billion a year, and UK reconviction rates at 50%, we are needed more than ever. As our founder Josh Stunell says, with a stern expression, when asked about the future aspirations for bthechange: “I hope in five years’ time I am redundant”. The intriguing thing about this comment is that Josh is deadly serious, and this is what underpins the organisation: a real sense of social purpose before profit. However, the reality is we as an organisation are growing day by day, increasing the capacity that enables us to expand our service.

There but for the grace of God go I

Hopefully, you will never need our services, but we know that life can be inexplicable, and circumstances can change extremely fast. So should you find yourself involved in the Criminal Justice System, we’re here for you.

Hope| Motivation | Action | Change

Remember the worst moment of your life. Remember the long battle you fought to get past that and get back to a normality again. But imagine if that new normality involved flashbacks at the most unwanted or unsuspecting times to that worst memory. Imagine jumping at every slightly loud or unexpected noise. Imagine being mentally unable to do certain things or go to certain places or hear certain sounds without feeling severe, paralysing distress. Imagine feeling periodically low at a certain time of the year, every year, like clockwork. Imagine just never ever being able to get past that worst moment. Well, that is exactly what having PTSD is like.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is mental health condition that is most commonly recognised in Soldiers and War Veterans, but it holds a very real place in modern lives too. It is estimated that around 60% of the male prison population show symptoms of moderate to severe PTSD. PTSD is essentially the mental inability to process a traumatic event in a person’s life, whether that be a sexual assault, or a car crash, or witnessing the death of a fellow soldier. Typically, it can take about 4 weeks to process a traumatic experience, but with PTSD this simply does not happen. It is so easy to tell yourself that anyone would think and feel the things you do after a traumatic event, but after a certain period of time, it is a problem.

There are psychological therapy treatments available for PTSD, alongside the classic solution of Anti-Depressants, but these can take a long time to work and there are still some people who these do not work for. There is also a lot of social stigma still around mental health conditions, and PTSD is no exception. Too many people take the stance of supporting you until your mental health inconveniences them. Those friends or family members who tell you “I understand” until you start screaming in public, literally screaming, because you are having a panic attack from flashbacks in your mind. Or you freak out with anxiety one too many times and you have gone from ‘fragile’ to ‘attention seeking’.

If you are lucky enough not to have PTSD, then these behaviours can seem very irrational. Trust me, as someone who has done these things, even I know they look crazy. But please try to remember that people with trauma are not exaggerating, they are not attention seeking and they are not crazy. It feels so real sometimes, it can be tough to pull ourselves out of these states of panic and anxiety, but we are trying, really. The last thing we want is to be making a scene, but we are not in control of how our bodies respond, it is just instinct.

The bottom line is just patient, be kind, and be supportive- even if the person has no known mental health conditions, you never know the battle that is going on in a person’s head.

Brief Early History of Windrush Generation

The 22nd June marks the 73rd anniversary of the Windrush migration, initiated by the landing of HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in Essex. The passengers of the ship included 492 people from the Caribbean who have come to represent the subsequent migration of people from Commonwealth countries to Britain. People who came to the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1973 would become known as the Windrush generation. Most of them were skilled workers. They came to answer Britain’s need for labour as it reeled from the aftershocks of war. That the majority of them had to settle for a lower job status than their skills justified was just one form of discrimination that would follow. All of these people were British citizens. The 1948 Nationality Act had granted United Kingdom citizenship to citizens of Britain’s colonies and former colonies. Their British passports gave them the right to come to Britain and stay here for the rest of their lives. Furthermore, as a result of the British colonial education system that revered Britain as the ‘mother country’, many would have identified as culturally British. This, however, was not the opinion of Britain’s white population at the time, who subjected members of the Windrush generation to racially charged verbal abuse and physical violence. Furthermore, access to housing, some pubs, clubs, dance halls, and churches were denied to Afro-Caribbean people because of the colour of their skin.

Windrush Scandal – what happened?

Unfortunately, these forms of discrimination only go to provide the context of what would later become known as the Windrush scandal. The anxieties concerning migration had not changed much in a significant portion of British voters in the 2010’s from what they were when Windrush landed in 1948. The platform of the Conservative government became one that aimed to, in the words of Theresa May, then Home Secretary ‘create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration’. This, although at the time perhaps a fleeting line, acquired huge historical significance. The term ‘hostile environment’ came to embody a policy that tasked the NHS, landlords, banks, employers, and others with enforcing immigration controls. It was the ambition of the Home Office to make it so difficult for the people it saw as illegally residing in the UK to remain that they would voluntarily leave the country, as this was deemed a cost-cutting form of deportation.

‘In a political climate where the rhetoric on immigration had been steadily hardening for a decade, [the Windrush generation] were viewed by officials as acceptable collateral damage. In its haste to implement measures which it hoped would cut stubbornly high net migration figures, the government reclassified a large, wholly legal cohort of long-term residents as illegal immigrants’. – Amelia Gentleman, The Windrush Betrayal

The Windrush scandal began to surface in 2017 when it emerged that hundreds of Commonwealth citizens, many from the Windrush generation, had been wrongly detained, deported, and denied legal rights. Many Black Britons had their lives devastated by Britain’s deeply flawed and discriminatory immigration system. Because many of the Windrush generation arrived as children on their parents’ passports, and the Home Office destroyed thousands of landing cards and other records, many lacked the documentation to prove their right to remain in the UK. The Home Office also placed the burden of proof on individuals to prove their residency predated 1973. The Home Office demanded at least one official document from every year they had lived here. Attempting to find documents from decades ago created a huge, and in many cases, impossible burden on people who had done nothing wrong.

Falsely deemed as ‘illegal immigrants’ / ‘undocumented migrants’ they began to lose their access to housing, healthcare, bank accounts and driving licenses. Many were placed in immigration detention, prevented from travelling abroad and threatened with forcible removal, while others were deported to countries they had not seen since they were children.  

Why is this still relevant?

The scars from the Windrush scandal are still being felt today. Although a joint op-ed published by The Home Secretary Priti Patel and Bishop Derek Webley in December last year promised to do everything in their power to right the wrongs suffered, there is still so much more work to be done. One only has to take a quick google of the topic to find that the majority of those victimised by the scandal have still yet to receive compensation, with examples of people who continue to be failed by our institutions emerging practically every day. Startlingly, Anthony Bryan whose BAFTA winning work was inspired by his experience of the scandal has still yet to receive any level of compensation. Some victims are dying without the wrongs they have suffered having been given the recognition that compensation would provide. In marking this day, we not only commemorate the landing of the Windrush but must demand that the victims of the scandal who have yet to be compensation be done so. Active citizenship demands that we hold those people and institutions responsible for the injustices of the Windrush scandal to account.

Further Reading:

Amelia Gentleman, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (2019)

Peter Fryer, The History of Black People in Britain (1984)

https://www.jcwi.org.uk/windrush-scandal-explained

https://study.soas.ac.uk/on-windrush-day/