Letter from Em Sheppard 26 December 2015

Please note it is impor­tant that this is not repost­ed after 30 Decem­ber 2015 as this will be in breach of licenc­ing con­di­tions.

In Octo­ber my pro­ba­tion offi­cer said I could go back to Bris­tol. Now it tran­spires I have been a MAPPA (mul­ti-Agency Pro­tec­tion) for my whole sen­tence, though no one thought to tell me (I always thought it was strange I wasn’t). The police met in Novem­ber about me and to draw up my licence con­di­tions, but (as is com­mon prac­tice) have only told me now. The licence is so restric­tive that iron­i­cal­ly I will have had more free­dom in jail in some ways. I’m not sure what’s worse – to refuse to leave prison, or to accept their restric­tions! It clear­ly shows what a farce the much quot­ed claims of “reha­bil­i­ta­tion” and “main­tain­ing fam­i­ly ties” are. I had a place to live and sev­er­al jobs organ­ised, but instead they make me sign-on and live in a bail hos­tel in Read­ing.

Licence con­di­tions are one of many pos­si­ble exam­ples of how the prison soci­ety extends beyond these walls. As Ruth Wil­son Gilmore said “Prison is not some build­ing ‘over there’ but a set of rela­tion­ships that under­mine rather than sta­bilise every­day lives, every­where”.

Apart from the usu­al “big 6” licence con­di­tions, I also have: a 7–7 cur­few for my entire licence (plus sign­ing sev­er­al times dur­ing the day and ‘group work’ and ses­sions with pro­ba­tion to address my “atti­tude”), not using any com­put­ers or inter­net capa­ble devices (and specif­i­cal­ly not delet­ing any brows­er his­to­ries), not going with­in 100 metres of any police build­ings (pro­ba­tion said if I want to report a crime I can but I have to ask per­mis­sion from them first…?!!?!), not to have more than one mobile phone (pos­si­bly not even one at all they are check­ing on this) and to pro­vide the SIM/IME num­ber, to per­ma­nent­ly reside at Eliz­a­beth Fry, not to vis­it or inter­act with any pris­on­ers, not to con­tribute to or pub­lish any­thing, or attend any meeting/gatherings asso­ci­at­ed with direct action/activism/campaigning, not to con­tact direct­ly or indi­rect­ly any per­son whom I know or believe to be involved with “extrem­ist” activ­i­ties ( I have asked for the legal def­i­n­i­tion of this), or have been charged with or con­vict­ed of an offence. I am also not allowed to work with “vul­ner­a­ble adults” or “groom” (or have dis­cus­sions with) any­one for the pur­pos­es of rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion or extrem­ism.

Once I’m out I’m going to chal­lenge these con­di­tions but my solic­i­tor said it’s hard to do from inside prison. Accept­ing them goes against every­thing I believe in but I am going to do so for my fam­i­ly. They are obvi­ous­ly set­ting me up to fail (most girls at Eliz­a­beth Fry do because drugs are rife there) so we’ll see how long I last. Once I sign the con­di­tions, unless I get recalled, I won’t be able to write again until 2017.  🙁

They can try to sti­fle and con­trol me with their restric­tions, false sym­pa­thies and fake smiles, but “no pueden encar­ce­lar neustras ideas”. My silence is only tem­po­rary, and my rage is infi­nite.

“Did you want to see me bro­ken?

Bowed head and low­ered eyes?

Shoul­ders falling down like teardrops,

Weak­ened by my soul­ful cries?

Just like the moons and like the suns,

With the cer­tain­ty of tides,

Just like hopes spring­ing high,

Still I’ll rise”

• Still I’ll rise, Maya Angelou

Thanks for all the sup­port this year. Hope you have a fun and mis­chie­vous 2016.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty, love and lots of rage

Em x 🙂

Please note it is impor­tant that this is not repost­ed after 30 Decem­ber 2015 as this will be in breach of licenc­ing con­di­tions.

More on her case here.

Resources for writ­ing to pris­on­ers here.