March 31, 2023 – Alcatraz, Alberta
The world is agog … (that’s a fun word, I don’t get to use “agog” very often, but I digress…)
The world is agog today about the arraignment of a prominent US politician. I won’t bore you by commenting on that particular situation; every television, radio, newspaper, magazine, tabloid, and coffee shop commentator is talking about it, but it did get me thinking:
What would languishing in prison be like for a high-profile individual, accustomed to a life-long lavish lifestyle?
That alliteration, with all those “L”’s was fun, but again I digress ….
I have a mild case of claustrophobia. It isn’t debilitating, but I really don’t enjoy being in a confined space. Any time I think about life in prison I get the heebie-jeebies.
Heebie-jeebies! How am I ever going to make it through this article without digressing …
The thought of life behind a cold, iron grate, in a small room with all the warmth and hospitality of a shipping container, with freedoms revoked, makes my skin crawl.
Welcome Home!
I did some research on affluent public figures who have been incarcerated for a period of time.
There is no shortage of such people, I had many to choose from, but one case in particular caught my attention. Jeffrey Archer, the world-renowned novelist, and member of the British House of Lords was convicted of perjury-related charges and spent two years in prison (July 2001 to July 2003). While he was detained, Archer wrote three non-fiction books about his experience in three separate prison systems. The books are written in diary form; they illustrate day-by-day detail of life behind bars at varying security levels.
I have added all three books to my read someday list.
My read someday stack of books is about six feet wide, ten feet deep and eight feet high (roughly the size of an average prison cell, coincidentally). If I never add another book to the list, and I read one a week, and if my eyesight doesn’t fail me, I should get through the stack by the time I am 128, provided it doesn’t fall over and do me in in the meantime.
Now, there’s a digression I would rather not think about….
I skimmed all three of Archer’s prison memoirs and came away with a cloudy understanding of what it would be like to fall from a life of privilege to an existence in a corrections facility.
The first book is entitled Belmarsh: Hell. The title gives you some idea of Archer’s initial reaction to imprisonment. The book describes leaving home and entering the prison system. It describes being locked in a confined space with hardened criminals and drug addicts. Archer’s initial reaction to prison portrays the depressing inhumanity of life in detention.
As Archer interacts with his fellow prisoners, he absorbs their circumstances. He learns how sexually abused children become sexual abusing adults. Archer comes in direct contact with the devastating effects of drugs and the hopelessness of addiction. His most abhorrent revelation comes when Archer realizes that social workers, magistrates, judges, and policemen, the people charged with the prison population’s rehabilitation, are often their worst abusers.
Archer describes his maximum-security experience at Belmarsh as a “Hell Hole”.
In the second book, Wayland: Purgatory, Archer settles into life at a medium-security institution. His enemy in Wayland doesn’t carry a knife or a needle, the main adversary is boredom. Archer describes mind-numbing tedium; a brief, regulated visit from a friend or family member is his only solace.
Archer comes to resent the sloppy ineffectiveness of prison bureaucracy at Wayland. Drudgery is his constant companion, and his jailer.
In 2002, Archer was transferred to a minimum-security facility to serve the last half of his sentence. He wrote North Sea Camp: Heaven while there. Archer uses the term Heaven to describe North Sea Camp, in relation to his experiences in higher-security facilities, but he often reverts to “Hell” and other demonic references when describing his minimum-security confinement.
Upon his release, Archer re-integrated into life as an author, but his prison experience plays heavily on the themes and characters of subsequent writing.
Two years of freedom denied, catapulted Jeffrey Archer to even greater fame and fortune. It is unlikely that the same can be said for most of the men he met in prison.
I have no idea what will happen to the most recent prominent individual charged with crimes, for which a conviction could result in a prison term.
Whatever happens, the prospect of viewing the world from this perspective must be terrifying.
On two occasions during my miss-spent youth, I had my freedom revoked. Incarceration on both occasions was very brief, less than an hour each, but every detail is forever etched in my memory.
But that is a story for another time, …
…. I digress.
Mike
Check out the pompous sycophant Conrad Black who was sentenced to 78 months in a US prison but after some legal shenanigans ended up serving 42 months. Ironically he wrote a fawning book about the man who will remain unnamed in order to secure a pardon. The story of how he came to the attention of US authorities is the best part.
Russ
I will check that out – Thanks…