My Time Behind Bars

Earlier this year, I was invited to a Youth Detention Centre to spend two days with 4 classes of young offenders in their school.

Upon my arrival I had to go through strict security procedures which was not unlike an airport. I couldn’t take my phone or computer and I had to bring my own lunch. Once security was cleared my host and I entered a room which you are buzzed in and out of. This room was the divide between the outside and the detention centre itself.

What struck me was the size of the place, how tidy it was and the extent of the facilities. There were the ‘sections’ (housing), a gym, basket ball court, football field, classrooms, swimming pool all surrounded by high walls and fencing.

The classrooms themselves verged on minimalist to say the least; apart from some educational posters, communal table, chairs and a white board, there was little to them. The rooms had smash-proof windows and a locked ‘DG cupboard’ (Dangerous Goods) which consisted of whiteboard markers, pencils, and erasers. I was informed that erasers could be sliced finely and jammed into locks – who knew?!

At the time of my visit there were around 170 young offenders (full capacity is around 300) including 17 females.

I learnt that there were particular groups (including the females) who were kept apart at all times.

They were corralled around the centre in small groups, with the precision and timing of air traffic control - some paths were never to cross.

The explosion of youth crime has been in the media a lot, all over the country. Speak to anyone and they will undoubtably have an opinion, some helpful, some not, some informed, others not so much. For me it was equal parts eye opening, jaw dropping and tragic to see these young people in this challenging environment. I couldn’t help but wonder how my own children would survive in such a place. I was told not to ask or discuss what they were in for.

The kids I met ranged from clearly traumatised, hyper-vigilant, some had physical scars, some suffering fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Most of the students were curious but engaged in an aloof, watching out the corner of their eye kind of way.

Each of the classes I attended had a teacher, a teacher aid or other support staff member, one or two guards - now known as ‘youth workers’. Many of whom were young women; who put their chairs up against the only door out of there. There were four to six students per class.

The first class was the most challenging, they were a group of 12 to 14 year olds. They were hyper, restless, pacing, practicing jabs and upper cuts; they rarely sat in their chair. One peppered the 45 minute session with loud, high pitched expletives. Every time another group walked by outside, they’d be up at the window banging on it, calling out, making signs or yelling abuse.

One of the students got hold of my remote slide clicker, I asked him calmly to give it back and like a seasoned magician he preformed a series of slight of hand manoeuvres, removed the batteries and pocketed the remote. “Just mucking with ya!” he said as he reassembled it and handed it back.

In my mind it pretty chaotic but apparently this was quite normal. Success was measured in quite small percentile increments. After that class we had a debrief, I was asked more than once “Are you OK?” I was clearly having difficulty hiding my stunned face. All I could think was ‘How do you do what you do - everyday?!!!’ The remaining 3 classes were 16 to 18 year olds who were much calmer.

I witnessed some incredible patience, support, connection and humour between the teachers, teacher aides, student wellbeing team members, youth workers (guards) and students. I asked a teacher if they ever felt in danger and she said “No not really, they know that we are here trying to help them.”

Sadly, incarceration is a revolving door for many of these kids – some will be there until they graduate to the adult prison which is just down the road. And tragically for many, it’s better and safer ‘being inside’ than it is being on the streets; they get a bed, three meals a day, get to go to school, receive medical support and counselling support if they need it.

Two teens I met were getting out in the following weeks and were both extremely nervous about it because it meant going back into a dysfunctional home life or being back on the streets or falling back into gangs.

I asked one or two who worked there what they thought the answer was? Basically, what came back is that it’s incredibly difficult to create a supportive, moral and directional compass when parents or guardians are either abusive, in prison, deceased, missing, homeless or substance dependent. And it takes a very strong character to walk away from what they know. One kid had recently been accepted into the army which everyone was very excited about.

Another support worker I spoke to felt that if drugs were legalised then the detention centre’s population would most likely be halved. Crime is often committed to feed habits. Habits cost money. The money funds gangs, who want to keep people addicted. He said if you make the habit clean, controlled and accessible while offering education, rehabilitation and treatment - you go along way to nixing the former. He rightly stated that there are few amongst us who truly desire to be substance addicted or criminally driven.

I was there in part on behalf of Drawn from Experience (DFE) and Here’s a Thought Wellbeing Program (HAT), which the detention centre school is already using.

HAT is about addressing adolescent worry, but the types of worries these kids face are totally unique to their particular situation – they’re separated from family, there’s the constant threat of violence or abuse, having to deal with the courts, being locked up in their cell for long periods of time, substance abuse and so on. Our strategy was not to offer answers because in many cases there aren’t any or many, but instead to encourage them to come up with a ‘way forward’ or another way of of looking at their situation.

At first, they were wary of me, but I started by saying I was there because of my mother Gail, to which a kid yelled out - “GAIL’S in JAIL!!!” ?? My mum, who passed away a few years back, spent several years working with a theatre group that went into the prison system in New Zealand. They’d get willing inmates to write a script for a play, produce it, make props, and eventually perform for the general public. Mum always said it was the most profound and powerful theatre she ever witnessed. She also said the work was incredibly cathartic for all involved. Mum was ‘art department’.

She then went on to work as a highly dedicated volunteer at the City Mission, teaching art to the homeless, drug and alcohol addicted, and to people who had just got out of prison. She did this unpaid work for over 15 years and stopped about a year before she died. She often said that people in her class would say, “I can’t draw!” “What’s the point?!!” Mum was an artist, she had trained in art therapy and she gently encouraged them to persevere. More often than not they’d be surprised and delighted with what they could create. Art is often seen as a past time or hobby not as a form or refection, discovery, release and healing.

Anyway, this got the kids’ attention and bought me a little cred. I showed them some of the work I’d been working on around mental health, burnout, adolescent worry and then we sat around and bounced around some their worries particular to the detention centre. We then brainstormed a way forward. The question posed to them was “With what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self or a younger person who had just entered the system?”

The work that you see here was all initiated by them and made whole by me. For their efforts I allowed them to choose a signed and dated print of mine which they handed over to their chaperone to be put away for safe keeping; prizes, rewards or gifts are highly coveted.

Although my time there was challenging and confronting, I also found it and the work shown here, highly rewarding. I would love to repeat the experience in other detention centre’s because hopefully the current population have a wisdom and experience that can help others not make the same mistakes. I am about to do the same sort of exercise for a hospital school next term who have their own unique set of worries.

Some of these young offenders are responsible for heinous crimes and are there for that very reason but from where I stood, they are still kids. Once they dropped the attitude and the tough facade, you could see vulnerability, curiosity and a sincere desire for something different.

I was also blown away by the dedication, compassion, and desire to help from the people who worked there, it is by no means an easy job. It was an experience I’ll never forget. I know Mum would have been smiling.

A massive thanks to the centre, the student wellbeing team and the students themselves for making it happen.

www.hatwellbeing.com

www.matthewjohnstone.com.au