By Stacey Stokes

First published in Stacey’s Substack 17 August 2024.

I went to jail because I was a rubbish person. Having been released from jail and now rejoining society, I have realized I will never again be allowed to walk in the light with the rest of the angels.

I haven’t hurt anyone in a long time. But once, I did. And that's what matters. Those who understand me now, are other criminals. Others who walk in the darkness with me. They get that I messed up and I’m so sorry. We all are. But society will view us with suspicion Forever. It leaves a mark on our psyche. We don’t feel comfortable around you, because you expect us to rob you. Or disappoint you. Or let you down. You can’t trust us… we see it in your eyes.

Remanding a child in custody is not going to fix their behavior. It's going to cement it. They will walk into the darkness with the rest of us who are cast aside. The only ones they can now relate to and feel comfortable with will be other criminals.

We aren't evil. We are just broken people. But when we are fixed, it counts for nothing. You hate the things we did. So, we are given no place in your society.

Rehabilitation is pointless without forgiveness and another chance at doing right. Have you ever stopped to think, maybe some people are now committing crimes because fuck your shitty society? When you’re not welcome in the light, well, you only have the darkness to make you feel like you belong somewhere. A place you’re not alone.

People need to belong. And you don't want us in your community. So, killers, Rapists and drug dealers are forced to hang out together, your naughty children will be hanging out with us. Because they went to jail too. They don’t relate to you anymore. They are a part of our world now. Our culture. You’re the enemy now.

The kids are troubled. So, you use coercive control to force them to act in a manner that is socially acceptable. You have not addressed why they are troubled. But you have taught them that might makes right. They will remember that lesson.

In prison I saw so many people who acted like angry children. Something horrible happened in their lives and they just never emotionally developed past that point. They are still angry little kids.

Your society had a chance to help them when they were 12. But you didn’t. now they have gotten older and killed a person. And everyone says how horrible they are. Well, you put off helping these kids. You invested in their criminal future. Now reap the interest on your investment.

You left these kids behind. You put a gun to their heads and told them to be good or else.

Have you been to jail? I doubt it. You can’t conceptualize it. You don’t understand what the “or else is”.

What jail is, is another world. A world that the longer you’re in, the more you belong. To a lot of people, it’s now home. It’s their world. Their friends are there. Their only friends. Because they have no other friends left.

So, when you send a kid to jail, you teach them that world is not so bad. And now the only friends they have are other naughty kids that will grow up to be meth dealers and enforcers. So, what’s the “be good or else now”?

Pfft you got nothing… so now what? You Reap your returns.

Kids can’t vote, smoke, drink or have sexual relationships. But they can be taken from all their loved ones and locked up in a strange place with strange people and held prisoner. Because that’s not traumatic at all. I mean, if that was a bad thing it’d be illegal to do that to children… oh wait...it is illegal to kidnap children and hold them prisoner. Well, I guess its ok if the government does it…

I really just think it’s a massive example of where our society is. When we fail the children in our duty of care to them, so we punish them.

We failed them. We did. It’s our fault. They rob a house at 12. It’s our fault. Its laughable you shake your heads at them. We raised them!

You may say “Well it’s not my kid. My kids are good.”

That’s the Australia I see, now that I am free. After such a long time. I see a society that leaves people behind. Homeless people litter the city. The highways are cracked and broken. The hospitals are full.

So, we have private hospitals. Private schools. All those entitled kids are fine. Those poor people can be left behind and you sleep just fine. Your just fine.

And then in your entitlement you complain. “My Tesla hit a pothole, and little Jimmy got a B on his test, he will never get in to the grammar school with marks like that.” And “Oh, throw those kids in jail, that will sort them out!”

Well, they gonna steal your Tesla man. Then when they get out of the prison you put them in to teach them a lesson, they will sell drugs to your little Jimmy, and he will OD.

Welcome to reality. Now Reap the returns.

My suggestion is to try as hard as possible to help these kids. Then try harder. The future rides on it. When I was in jail, one of the biggest things we hated was when a nice-looking lady in her twenties fresh from uni tried to “help” us. No thanks. We walk in the darkness now. Take your privilege and piss off. We wanted a ex-junkie to tell us how he crawled his ass out of the darkness back into the light.

When you are in the darkness, you want a person who has tasted their own blood. The sting of needle. The pain of addiction. They know. We respect them.

When I was a kid, a court ordered me to go into counseling because of my behavior. A nice middle age white lady showed me pictures of dogs rooting and asked if that had ever happened to me… No lady, this is the first time a grown-up has shown me animal porn. I was a troubled kid. This lady did not help me. I ended up in jail.

How do you say, “I’m being abused and bullied, and I think I’m supposed to be a girl”. To a person who looks like a teacher at school or one of your parent’s friends. My deepest darkest secrets I can’t share with any other human. but I will tell random white lady number 57… are you serious? pfft.

And that’s it. They tried. And gave up.

Then I went to jail for 10 years.

The returns of the half assed effort to help me.

I think I would have opened up to a person who had seen some shit though. A person who I thought would be like, “Is that it?! kid, I killed a man for his shoes and went to jail for 15 years”. This person is not going to judge me. Even as a little kid, I felt like that. But a person who has seen some shit has no place in polite society… He probably went to jail when was 12 too. I bet I know him.

(*Please understand, I blame me for going to jail. I failed me. I failed my family*)

Stacey Stokes

Stacey is a trans woman with a lived experience of incarceration. She is on the advisory group for Flat Out’s Beyond Bricks and Bars Trans Decarceration Project and writes on the criminal legal system and its harms on her Substack. Become a free or paid subscriber to receive new posts.