When it comes to criminals and prisons, everyone has an opinion. I urge you to watch this before deciding what yours is.
BBC Scotland’s Girls Behind Bars follows a handful of women as they struggle to get through their sentence at Cornton Vale Prison in Scotland. With insight into a lifestyle that many of us will never even come close to, it’s every bit as depressing, enlightening and gripping as you would expect.
Described by the voice over (Timothy Spall, no less) as a ‘safe sanctuary away from their chaotic lives outside’, Cornton Vale, although no picnic, is shown in a different light to prisons in their traditional sense. Unlike many prison documentaries that depict bullying, poor food and living conditions, Girls Behind Bars focuses on the personal lives of these women, and how they’re each stuck in an unending vortex of crime, sentence, release, reoffend.
Over 90% of the women in Cornton Vale are addicted to hard drugs. No surprise there of course, as it’s the main reason for most of them ending up there in the first place. However, watching them try to score drugs of newcomers who are ‘banking’ (holding drugs inside themselves somehow) and vomiting relentlessly into buckets as they’re ‘rattling’ (suffering severe withdrawal symptoms from heroin), you see the true side of addiction. Prison is merely a breeding ground for users, and with the constant influx of drugs from visitors, those addicts can continue their habit even in the very place that, if caught, could condemn them for further time inside.
However, it’s clear to see that many of these women want to get clean and end their life of crime, but as soon as they’re out in the same environment that put them in prison in the first place, they’re making the same mistakes that they did before. And they’re all too aware of this fact.
The saddest truth, admitted by the likable but tragic Theresa, is that nothing that’s ever happened to her before has stopped her from taking heroin. Residing herself to that fact that once she’s out, it’ll be a matter of time before she’s back in.
The women in the 2 episodes so far each have their own unique story to tell. Zoe, for example, the angel faced 19 year old with a determination to take her own life and regularly has violent outbursts to staff is probably the saddest case yet, is the picture of a victim of years of sexual abuse. This is the true effect of abuse, and it’s a heartbreaking one.
Young offender Kerry, a prime example of someone trying desperately to put her past behind her and dissociate herself from drugs once she’s been released. She manages for 6 months, but then what?
The questions posed by the series are abundant. What is life like for the children who’s mother is in one of these prisons? They have their own prison sentence, being moved around between children’s homes and foster families. Families suffer just as much, as we see from the euphoria expressed by June’s 16 year old daughter at her release, and the emotion shown by Kerry’s mother when she returns home for the first time in years, describing it as ‘torture’.
All the time you ask yourself, ‘what can be done for these women?’ ‘Have they only themselves to blame for their actions?’ Sometimes, it’s down to very unfortunate circumstances, falling into the wrong crowd or having unspeakably terrible things happen you. Ultimately, nobody in prison has chosen that life willingly; their environment, personal relationships and circumstances are all contributing factors.
Like heroin, once it’s got you, it’s incredibly difficult to set yourself free.
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