It’s my seventh night in HMP Wandsworth at the start of my 45-month sentence for fraud. I live on A Wing now, with a new cellmate, John, a heroin addict. He’s an older guy, short, very slight, sores all over his face, neck and hands. Prison is full of men like John: addicts who get sentenced to a few weeks, or months, in prison. Some are regulars, welcomed back by guards and prisoners. One man completes three sentences while I am imprisoned there. What good does it do banging men like this up?
John is 52 and the best part of his life – which he has spent mostly in and out of prison – is behind him. The first of his many short sentences was in 1982, when he was just 14. In the years since, John has been in and our of prison, fighting his addiction to drugs and committing crimes.
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