Is it a Crime to be Poor?
Reflections on My Prison Gap Year
By Sobanan Narenthiran, 2022 Fellow
Prison’s weird, I sit with people I would’ve gone to school with. I went to University and they went to the countryside to sell crack. It scares me to think how lucky I was, to have a mum and dad who gave me three meals a day and a roof to feel safe under. My friends in here, their parents fought their own demons, broken by a system that didn’t care about their fall.
I remember in school, I used to fight the kids that would steal phones. I sat across my friend, he grew up in the city but he was one of those kids, the ones who’d snatch your phone and threaten you with violence. I asked him why, he told me that it was a choice between cereal with water for dinner or some chicken and chips with the returns from his ill gotten gains. It was in that moment it clicked. It’s a crime to be poor. To grow up on a council estate, at the whims of the system, it’s a crime to face adversity as a child, it’s a crime to have parents who don’t know how to raise a child.
I see sadness when I look around, when I ask my peers about their lives outside of prison- they tell me about fear, desperation and poverty. Imagine, living a reality where uncertainty reigns supreme, you don’t know where your next meal comes from, you only know that you must try to survive. I couldn’t relate but I felt the pain, the hurt children that become broken men. Only thinking about how to meet immediate needs, with no thought for the consequences this brings.
I went to prison thinking I would meet bad people, people who deserved to be punished and be taught a lesson. Instead, I found people hurt and in pain, people who had to grow up much earlier than they needed too. Each story filled with lost hope and dreams, completely avoidable by a more compassionate system where we learn to love each other like family.
I’ve spoken to a few people who were quite rich- their sentences were more lenient, their route to open prison more easy, it felt like even in prison they were treated better. But still, they would complain about the difficulty they faced and the culture of the men. It shocked me that people so privileged could be so heartless to the suffering of others.
The culture of violence and aggression we see in crime is a facade. To live in a system with the disparity of wealth, where in the same postcode a child could go hungry and a billionaire resides in luxury — requires a level of numbness to survive. The child will grow up and wonder what did it do wrong, why was it born poor, why is it subject to a system that doesn’t love it so. It learns to fight, take and grow, without the violence — how will it ever make it through?
In each human is a desire to be loved, healthy and whole, but for some the options are limited from the moment they are born. In prison you can feel it, through the landings and the cells, there are good people who just want to make it out of the revolving door, but who should they do it for? I tell everyone to do it for yourself, but what if crime is all you’ve ever known? It’s where we must show love and compassion, to teach each other that it’s not a crime to be poor.
My time in prison taught me a lot, our system lacks humanity, it lacks it to its core. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see our prisons filled up with the poor, instead we’d see that criminality exists across a spectrum of classes, creeds and cultures. Only some will never have to see a prison wall. They’re the lucky ones, where their crimes are brushed away as they aren’t too poor. Next time, you see a story about someone being sent to prison, try to consider that they are still a person, deserving of kindness and warmth.
Crime isn’t fair, it’s not black and white — it’s just a murky grey mess. We criminalise in our culture, according to the whims of the day. I beg you my friend, to consider the people in our prison walls, I promise you they don’t all deserve to be there, their lives are an orchestrated fall.
Imagine, not being able to read or write, facing abuse and negligence at the hands of all those you hold dear. Not from a place of malice but one of ignorance for their choices aren’t that clear.
Poverty is multi-generational, pain fills mothers’ wombs, for a child born in poverty has a fate written by the state. Think about that for a moment, a life in institutions starting from the age of 5. You move into school, care then maybe a PRU. Followed by some time in a Youth Offenders all before 21. When your peers are graduating, you move to the adult estate to learn about crime, how else does the institutionalised spend their time?
You’ll be released at times, without support or guidance to help, instead they’ll blame you at each hurdle, just to keep everyone safe. My own understanding of institutions is from my experience alone, but I was lucky enough to leave and go back home.
For I left prison, to go live with my parents, I worked part time and went back to University.
My friends were released homeless, without a place to rest their head, they struggled each day but they would hide their stress. They are determined to learn, going to University, working full-time or attempting to become more than they were.
I don’t know if I ever could have a stable life, without my family there for me- it scares me to think how many aren’t as lucky as me. If there’s one takeaway from my experience in prison; it’s that there’s always hope. Each person in prison must become a witness; sharing their voice. It’s not a shame to have served a sentence, instead it’s a badge of honour.
For as Mandela said “A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it’s lowest ones. Only free men can negotiate, prisoners can’t enter into contracts. It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.” We know our nation better than most, for knowledge is power.
Change is coming, let us each do our part.
