How I Managed to Not Go to Prison

The injustice of Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences (IPP) affected me so much I'm still working on it 3 years later. Thousands of men and women still remain in prison with no idea if or when they will ever be released. At least 90 suicides in prison, at least 31 outside on license in the community, lives destroyed. families grieving, hopes decimated.

I can tell who the people are in this space that don't have family members affected, who put ending IPP sentences above and beyond personal differences or grievances and those who don't.

In October the campaign group IPP Committee in Action wrote on X the platform formerly known as twitter that,

The psychological suffering of IPP families!

Someone who is indefinitely grieving someone who hasn’t died is often referred to as “ambiguous loss.” Creating a situation where there is a lack of closure or a clear resolution to a loss, leading to prolonged grief or emotional distress.

Physical absence with psychological presence: When someone is physically absent but still psychologically present (e.g., missing persons, estranged family members, or individuals who have disappeared).

It spoke of a deep grief and an unending torture. And made me think there but for the grace of God go I.

But I have a mental health diagnosis(es) (find out more about that if my book ever gets published) that makes me feel deep empathy and a need for justice probably more than most people, other than those who have the same diagnosis.

I feel people's pain, sometimes physically. That emapthy and urgent need for injustice to end can and has made me feel physically sick. I've been a campaigner and activist far longer than I've been a journalist.