Prisonomics by Vicky Pryce Page A

– Vicky Pryce’! That, at least, was true – in fact, most days the lunchtime soup was freshly made with vegetables left over from the garden and whatever bits of chicken may have been left from the supper the day before. I’m sure I must have said something like that because I genuinely enjoyed it – of course it always helps to have the alternative in mind i.e. Holloway, the new ‘Bowani test’ for me in terms of food. Compared with that everything else was a big improvement. Happiness, I think, is being able to adjust your expectations (a long way) downwards and to be prepared to be pleasantly surprised. From then onwards I was always given extra helpings when I arrived at the food counter…
    The positive feedback had its drawbacks, however. A week later I had been lovingly given a larger than normal portion of brown, slightly unappetising-looking , soup with a dumpling at the bottom by a rather fierce girl, Hannah, who worked in the kitchens and whose wrong side you had learned to generally avoid. On arriving at my designated place in the dining room I discovered that my table companions had already ditched it saying it was inedible so I gave it up too before I even started. Once you’ve finished lunch or supper you take your tray into the Butler’s Room and empty everything you haven’t eaten or any rubbish into one of the three bins that are there before washing plates, cutlery and tray, which of course I then disinfected. So we entered the Butler’s with traysstill full of soup. The first person we encountered was Hannah. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘did you not eat your soup after all?’ Before I was able to say I was a bit full actually, so couldn’t finish it, Liz, my straight-talking ex-police officer friend, butted in: ‘It was rubbish really, truly awful soup. Who made it?’ ‘I did,’ was the reply. I hid from Hannah for days thereafter.
26 MARCH
    A number of girls told me that my name was on a notice board outside centre office, with an appointment for my risk-assessment today at 10.30. I had a talk with Miss Callaghan, the prison officer assigned to me as my personal officer, who told me it should all be fine but she couldn’t be there herself as she was doing something for charity outside the prison that day. I went in for my appointment just after Liz, who came out of it looking OK, I thought. I walked in carrying my pathway papers – according to Mo, the education lady, I was the only one to ever do so even though all the girls are asked to bring them to the board. I confirmed that I was intending to do as much education and mentoring of girls as possible and work in the kitchens, which I had already started to do. They seemed to think that my intentions to look at various studies on release was a ‘good thing’ and were pleased that I was having regular family visits, which to them was a positive sign.
    I was assessed as very low risk – the probability of reoffending was estimated at 2 per cent for the first year after release and the probability in the second year was strangely put at 4 per cent following some statistical average. Puzzling, as I don’t think I intend to allow anyone to pass their points onto my drivinglicence in the future, but who was I to argue? I was told that my HDC date when I could leave prison and go home to serve the rest of my time at home on a ‘tag’ was confirmed for 13 May but that it still depended on the governor signing my release on tag, though it rarely gets refused. I was also apparently now able to go unescorted for an emergency visit to a doctor or dentist or optician, probably in Maidstone. I thought that might be fun but in the event I couldn’t think of a reason to pay any of those people a visit. I began to wonder how I could possibly leave without having visited Maidstone while in ESP, the destination of choice for those girls going out on day visits at the weekend. I suspect they spent most of their time out eating. I asked one girl one