The first thing that happens to you as a prisoner is tea.
I’m escorted down to the holding cells by two police. I’m fairly sure, for me at least, they were there to make sure I didn’t faint, rather than making sure I caused no trouble. I’m put into a cell with perspex walls. A kind-faced lady, one of the officers, asks if I know where I am. When I answer that I do, she hands me a cup of hot, very milky tea. Warming me up and restoring my blood sugar levels, it has what I suspect is the intended effect.
In this clear-walled cell for about an hour, I mostly sleep and only found out later that it is an observation unit. All prisoners spend time here so the officers can make sure you don’t hurt yourself from the shock. It is also where the prison system decides if you are innocent or guilty. The innocent are the ones in danger; they pace, cry, rant and negotiate things like phone calls. The guilty sleep…
At some point, I’m nudged awake by a female officer and moved into yet another cell to, well, wait again. I’m waiting because they don’t bring new inmates to Melbourne Assessment Prison (MAP) until after lockdown, which is half past four in the afternoon, but at the time I don’t know that.
Sitting in that cell I have no idea what the time is, or how long I have been sitting on concrete benches, waiting.
This new cell is much bigger, and during the day two other prisoners are brought in. They are both in their early twenties. One is in for ‘ag burg’, or aggravated burglary, which is robbing a home when someone is home, and the other for unpaid fines.
They are the first crims I’ve ever spoken to, and they shatter my assumption that you don’t ask what someone is in for, and you don’t talk about what you’re in for. Instead, it’s just about the first thing people ask, and the first piece of information inmates volunteer. It’s all you talk about with some people, and it’s the one thing you all have in common: you both committed a crime.
So I tell these guys fraud, and they want to know who from. When I say it was one of Australia’s largest financial institutions, their attitude is, ‘Good on you,’ and, ‘F**k ’em, victimless crime.’
There I am, licking my wounds and wondering how I got from there to here, and these young men are impressed at my brazenness and choice of victim. Mr Ag Burg’s main concern is how he can make sure he ends up at the same jail as his brother, who is in Castlemaine doing time for a hit and run. He wants to go and work industry with him, which would mean their mum only has to visit one jail.
The other lad doesn’t care. He’s in for four months, and when he gets out, he won’t owe the fines anymore. It’s a much easier way to pay fines, he said. It’s ‘just jail’. I marvel at their indifference to their current situation. I have no idea how to respond to their nonchalance, and so our conversation dwindles off.
Will Patterson shares his experience of what prison is really like in his memoir.
When lunch is offered, we eat in silence. Without ever discussing it, we agree that when one of us gets up to use the fully exposed, lidless, stainless-steel toilet that is bolted to one wall, the other two will turn their backs. Perhaps it’s the intermittently offered tea, perhaps it is the food, or it could be the five and a half hours we are locked in that cell, but in time we all take our turn.
Once we are moved to the MAP, I’m put in line after line, cell after cell. It feels like a very long time, but in truth, it is only around an hour. I move through four cells, each filled with men whose faces range in expression from resignation to terror. I’m feeling a lot closer to terror, but I try and keep my face as neutral as possible. Mind you, the constant tapping of my foot might be giving me away.
Every officer, doctor and contract worker I speak to, and there are nine in all, want me to answer the same questions: ‘Do you know where you are?’, ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ and ‘Have you had any thoughts of self-harm?’
By about the fourth interview, the questions just feel like a process, and I’m not convinced anyone actually cares about my state of mind or my risk of self-harm. I do, however, suspect they care a great deal about the additional paperwork that would be generated if I answered their questions incorrectly. This feeling is compounded when it is my turn to see the doctor. In addition to the normal barrage of questions, the doctor adds, ‘Are you taking any medications?’
This is the one questions I am prepared for, and I direct him to the letter from my doctor that outlines my various ailments and their remedies. Dr Brian and I have spent the best part of seven years getting it right and the balance had, well, helped my balance immensely. The prison doctor reviews all our work with a ‘Yes, yes, no.’ Definitely No. Sure, I don’t know why, but okay,’ and ‘Oh, I’m surprised you were ever given that, so … no.’
Four out of seven. Not a bad effort, I suppose, but after a full day sitting on wooden or concrete benches, the compressed disks in my back are hinting that later on I will regret not arguing harder to get Panadeine Forte.
It will end up taking five weeks to have it approved.
As an introduction to the Victorian prison system, all new inmates are issued with what The MAP calls an immediate needs pack. It contains:
• $3 phone credit
• 1 pack of cigarettes (optional)
• 1 box of matches
• 1 toothbrush
• 1 small tube of toothpaste
• a bag containing sachets of coffee and sugar, and tea bags
• 600 ml of full cream milk
• and two condoms.
I walk away with this bounty and wonder who decided that my immediate needs could probably be met with one tea bag, but might require two condoms.
Finally, arms full of prison-issue blankets, I’m escorted in the dark up various flights of stairs, across a shadowy and alien courtyard, and into my unit. The cell is unlocked, and I’m introduced to my cellmate.
Showing me the panic button, the female officer explains that I should press it if I feel like I might hurt myself at all, or if I have concerns that anyone else might hurt me. Looking my cellmate up and down, I think of the condoms in my bag. Older than me, mid-fifties I guess, he looks about as confident as I feel, and I judge it unlikely that I’ll receive any advances that night.
It’s just as well – the panic button is next to the bottom bunk, right beside his pillow.
The officer locks us in, and I wonder how I will sleep without my night-time tablet, Seroquel. The answer is terribly. I have a panic attack a few hours in. Unable to go outside, I can barely even see outside through the milky, cracked perspex covering our window.
Realising this is my life for the next nine months, my chest tightens and anxiety takes its familiar grip.
I cry as quietly as I can and my cellmate pretends not to hear me. At one point, I get up to use the toilet, and he smiles, wordlessly offering me a Tim Tam.
Accepting gratefully, I crawl back onto my bunk, crying until I exhaust myself and fall sleep.
The above is an extract from the memoir Mr Ordinary Goes to Jail by Will Patterson (Finch Publishing, July 2018). Available in paperback and ebook nationwide from July.
Mr Ordinary Goes to Jail is Wil’s account of his time in a contemporary Victorian prison, the unusual characters he met, the often hilarious and terrifying situations he found himself in, and the ways in which he comes to terms with his past and forges a new, more hopeful future.
