Incarceration

Not long ago I was in prison.

Not, I am relieved to report, because I had been sentenced to spend time in there, but because I had gone in as a volunteer. This entailed entering a wing in the company of a burly, key-rattling warder, and then sitting for ninety minutes in a very small cell with approximately 15 male prisoners and one other male volunteer.

I don't do prison volunteering very often because it is difficult service for which I can feel very ill-equipped. But I have never once felt frightened, not even the time when two prisoners almost began fighting and I was the furthest person from the door.

This is because the men inside the cells have always treated me with the most incredibly touching courtesy. Tattooed giants usher me towards the only chair with arm rests, saying "sit here Miss". Young lads who cannot look me in the eye still manage to shake my hand afterwards and say "thanks for coming". And when these men accidentally let out a swear word while speaking, an apology is swift to follow.

I am bewildered as to how things became so horrendously different at work. I don't know what I did to upset some of my colleagues so much. I don't understand why this group selected me as their "mobbing" target, or how I could have avoided this. And I still try to make sense of it all, which is pointless and painful; and gets me precisely nowhere.

But it does seem so very strange that I can feel (relatively) comfortable and at peace in almost every environment I inhabit except for my own workplace.

I felt freer in that prison than I did last Wednesday sitting in the same room as The Jackals.

And I felt a hell of a lot safer.