Some participants seemed to feel somehow disconnected from the physical environment outside o f prison in the early stages o f their release - experiencing it as somehow alien or different. This was not evident in all accounts, but was experienced in particular by those who had spent longer periods in the prison.
Altered perceptions
Many described that their perceptions o f basic environmental characteristics were in some way distorted when they first left the prison. Participants seemed to find it hard to articulate this experience and there was often a vagueness about their descriptions. As one explained ‘W as all just weird... Didn 7 fee l right as soon as I got out'’ (3f).
Some participants’ descriptions revealed a more specific distortion o f their perception o f size. Occasionally, participants referred to things like trees outside seeming larger -
“Everything looked bigger like... everything was bigger and it was different.. ” (7f). A couple, on the other hand, referred to their homes feeling smaller. One individual who had served a long sentence described other ways in which he had to reacquaint himself with his physical environment outside o f prison. These included desensitising himself to the height o f his tower block which ‘scared him a bit’ initially and remembering to turn the taps off, having been used to the ‘ones which pop back up’ in prison (17f).
Others referred either explicitly, or implicitly, to a distorted sense o f speed when they first encountered the outside. A number made references to feeling unaccustomed to the speed o f various forms of transport in particular. As one commented,
'‘...these fast cars were going past and it felt like they were doing one hundred and thirty mile an hour*’ (9f).
Whilst only one labelled it as such, some described experiencing symptoms, possibly o f anxiety, whilst travelling in cars and trains for the first time. One described experiencing an ‘adrenaline rush’, ‘dizziness’ and ‘feeling sick. Another interpreted the feeling he got quite differently as excitement, commenting “...you see like with coke [cocaine], i t ’s not a buzz, hut i t ’s a feeling you can’t describe - a really nice feeling... It was just like that” (15f).
For a couple, the strangeness did not seem to be associated solely with literal physical speed, but with the more general hustle and bustle of everyday life outside. One participant described this vividly:
“I t ’s not like in prison. Everything there’s all their times. And what they do there is all slow But when y o u ’re out, everybody’s moving around doing things... and that’s what it is. You ’re not used to moving that quickly. You ’re not used to walking down the road. You’re not used to catching buses. You’re not used to drinking, to going to the bar., all rushing to the bar. You’re not used to all rushing to the toilet., all that really. I t ’s weird basically.... ” (14f)
For one or two, this unaccustomed activity and exercise took its toll on them physically - “A long walk round town and that killed my legs” (15f).
Feeling overwhelmed
“I ju st stared at the front door fo r about five minutes.... I don ’t know... I was just leant against the banisters looking at the front door.. Then I sat down on the stairs, looking at the front door. And there was a lady in the office [o f the hostel] and she come out going 'are you alright? ’. A nd I was going 'yeah, y ea h ’...” (15f)
As the above reflects, a few participants also described feeling afraid or nervous to leave their homes during the early stages o f this or a previous release. Again, this experience was sometimes described somewhat vaguely by participants. Some appeared to find it hard to admit this vulnerability initially during the interview. Others simply found it hard to explain, seemingly puzzled by the whole experience. That participants’ anxiety was linked with the described distortion o f their perceptions seems plausible. The hypothesis was however hard to validate on the basis o f the available accounts.
Yet another individual similarly described feeling overwhelmed as he left the prison gates for the a town visit after a long period inside. He noted that he had felt ‘as if he was looking down a hill’, that his ‘legs had gone from under him’ and that he had been left ‘unable to speak’ for about half an hour (17i).
Only one participant, however, suggested that that he had experienced difficulty in ‘breaking out o f his anxiety and that it had prevented him - at least initially - from doing things he would normally do:
“There were a lot., a lot I wanted to do... I wanted to go shopping, I wanted to go my g irl’s house and then and I wanted to come back home.. But I never done none o f them things - apart from staying in my house ” (4f)
The majority seemed to have confronted and overcome their anxiety very quickly, desensitising themselves to the outside world within the first few days, or even hours, o f release.
Finally, one individual had also avoided going out initially, but for a completely different reason. Having heard they were angry, he wished to avoid meeting the victims o f his previous offences:
"... well like a month I sat at home with my mum and that. I just kept my head down ‘cause I knew that there were so many people there after me ”
Little things that have changed
Finally, a few participants commented on changes to their areas. Whilst relatively trivial in nature, these changes seemed to have contributed to participants’ initial sense o f disconnection from their area and community. One young man was also aware of how things had moved on more generally:
“But it's like them little things - like when you go in a shop to buy a packet o f fags... Just before I went in prison you could buy twenty fags fo r three pounds something, but now it's nearly a fiver. All different.. ” (9f)