Bring Back the Clown and the Jelly and Ice Cream.

Last night I took Firstborn, who is nearly 13, to her first Teen-style party in a local nightclub. This was a traumatic experience - for me. She's into hockey - think Sporty Spice with the tracksuits - and I had to talk her into glamming up a WEE bit. However, when I dropped her off I felt (to be quite honest) a leaden feeling in my stomach at the sight of some of these 12/13 year old girls with the make up trowelled on and outfits that a prostitute would draw the line at. (Not all of them, but some of them). I understand that they are innocent and don't realise why it makes some of us adults feel uncomfortable.

And I know she's past the soft play area stage and the princess party dresses. I'm not naive. But I'm scared for them all.

Kids are sexualised so young nowadays - look at their tv choices, their clothes choices in the shops, the celebrity culture obsession with image and the associated eating disorder problems. I just want to stand up and say it's wrong. I need to stand up anyway - I'm off to the cinema to see Horton Hears a Who with the younger contingent of the Droid family. One of the characters in it has 96 daughters and 1 son, so his worries are definitely greater than mine!

1. Little Bo Peep.

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them. Unlike this cartoon what the rhyme says is "Leave them alone and they'll come home bringing their tails behind them" (I nearly put "tales" there instead of "tails" - how much more interesting that would be!)

The phrase "lost sheep" has entered our language. I like to think this comes not from Little Bo Peep but from the illustration Jesus used: "Suppose one of you has 100 sheep and loses one of them - what does he do? He leaves the other 99 in the pasture and goes looking for the one that got lost until he finds it."... and then he goes on to say that once found, there would be a real celebration. But the most surprising bit is the punchline. (Jesus said some very surprising things). "In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 respectable people who do not need to repent).

In other words if, just for example, a chav (or ned as they're known in Scotland) as depicted in the Chavopoly board of a recent post below (13 April 08), were to repent (genuinely) there would be a party in heaven such as would not happen for the good guy who's always been a good guy.

Just astonishing. No wonder those on the outside find what we Christians believe totally offensive.

Incidentally, we looked at this at the service in the jail this afternoon, with the aid of a box of Celebrations to reinforce the point. I gave the (very) few leftovers to a couple of officers afterwards. I did not mention Little Bo Peep this afternoon btw - not really the thing to do in a macho environment.

Chavopoly!

Apologies for the bad language. I found this on Purpleplus's website (click link on right) and shamelessly nicked it. It's too sad to be funny, but it's really clever and well observed.

Yesterday, today, for ever...

As I've said before, I enjoy reading the blogs of police, paramedics and teachers, as many of these people are feeling the same sort of bewilderment I am (and no doubt you are too) about the ills of society.

Here, however, are some quotes from the days when blogs were presumably kept on paper or even parchment rather than in cyberspace:

"In every department of our nation, industry, commerce and agriculture, there is no hope."
Disraeli in 1852.

"The world is passing through troublesome times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they know everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness to them. As for the girls, they are immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."
Peter the Monk in 1274.

"When I look at the younger generation, I despair of the future of civilisation." Aristotle, in the year 300BC.

A long time ago a very wise man, in his interesting wee book called Ecclesiastes (found in the Jewish and Christian Bibles) said this: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

I find that oddly comforting.

Twisted thinking

Prisoners' thinking can be very twisted.

Recently I was talking to a prisoner who was arguing that if he had his way all "junkies" would be given an injection in the neck and put down. This man is an alcoholic. In my usual diplomatic way (!) I pointed out that alcoholism was an addiction too. He wasn't pleased and said that no, alcholism is a disease. I was unable to persuade him that there were any similarities between the addictions.

But jail's like that. There is a pecking order of crime. In a jail containing only sex offenders, the rapists (i.e. rapes of adult victims) see themselves better than the paedophiles. In other jails, prisoners classify themselves as better than some other class of offence. Prisoners often lie to one another about the nature of their offence to make it more "acceptable". Incidentally, murder, which we might (hopefully DO) see as very bad, isn't looked down on so much in jail whereas other offences, like mugging an old lady, are seen as beyond the pale.

I have found this very interesting, and yet I have also found myself wondering if perhaps ALL human beings do exactly this. According to our own various personal measuring schemes we rate others as above or below us. A dear and very ancient relative of mine openly judges people on how good their speech is (she once studied elocution herself).

I heard a prison officer recently refer to all the prisoners collectively and dismissively as "scrotes" - I think he validates himself, in a way, by finding a group of people he feels superior to.

Do I do it? I hope not, but I fear I do.

Hello Dad I'm In Jail

Hello Dad I'm In Jail by Was Not Was is just great. Watch it if you've never seen it. Weird, was not was it?!

I'm struck by the line, "I like it here". It was probably meant sarcastically but the truth is some of our guys do like jail better than life outside. If you've been in jail for years, being outside is seriously scary and even crossing the road or catching a bus is pretty daunting. Above all, in jail, everyone else is in the same boat as you and there's a sort of "fellowship" there. Yesterday I was talking to an officer about a certain prisoner and we were agreeing it's kind of a shame that when his sentence is over he couldn't just be given a job and allowed to stay! He gets on fine in jail but makes a pig's ear of life outside.

20 years ago I worked as a visiting officer for the Dept of Social Security at the time when under "Care in The Community" institutionalised adults with learning difficulties were being put out of their institutions into flats in the big (and in places wild) council housing estate. Good news for those on the look out for vulnerable people to relieve of their benefit. Some of them perhaps should never have been in an institution but, given that they had been, the transition was tough. Many had the mental age of children and just because they had been taught to shop and cook and clean didn't mean they were going to be happy living by themselves.

Before that I worked in a night shelter/ day centre for single homeless men. One fellow, D, had done really well and was drug free. Aged 34 he was allocated a flat and I was sent off to The Barras in Glasgow to help him spend his DSS grant of £500 (this was before loans came in) on everything he needed for his flat. I said, "Right you definitely need a cooker". "Oh no", says he, "I'll just light a fire". "D, you can't do that, you're on the twelfth floor of a multi-storey block. You must have a cooker". "Okay, but can I light the fire on top of the cooker?" He had lived in children's home followed by List D school (as it was then called) followed by Young Offenders Institution followed by jail followed by the Night Shelter. He was definitely institutionalised. And yet D actually did really well and got on fine, even with his cooker!

Lots of guys (and women) do get on fine, even if they've been institutionalised for a long time but an awful lot don't. I know prisons are overcrowded as it is, but sometimes I just think, you know, can't we just keep this guy and give him a job and a home? I'm not really being serious. Obviously we can't. But, expensive as it is to keep folk in jail, how much more costly in every way not just financial, to have them out wreaking havoc on themselves and others?

Polis!

A prison officer at work told me that one day when she was supervising the visiting, a wee 2-year old who was in visiting his dad came up to her, pointed at her white shirt with black epaulettes and said, "Polis" (Scottish for police). She said, "No, my name's ....., what's your name?" The wee fellow couldn't yet say his own name, but already he could say, "Polis". She thought, "there goes one of our future customers". Hopefully he won't be, but I know what she means. Sometimes you feel some kids haven't a chance, don't you?

A prisoner I've got to know well, who claims to be a Christian, will be "libbed" (liberated, released) this year, and although I've spent a lot of time with him, I've yet to be persuaded that he has the faintest idea how to live honestly and within the law. The more I learn of his background and the number of his relatives in jail, and so on, the more I think that he actually doesn't know how to live honestly. And yet, he's never been in jail before, he's hated it and he's determined never to be back. He wants to provide for his family. He plans to work. He plans to go to church. But I think he's like a grown up version of that wee 2-year old and won't succeed unless he can somehow unlearn all he learned as he grew up. I am really really really thankful for my upbringing, in which I learned right from wrong, and I worry for this guy's wee ones, that he'll be equipped to teach them right from wrong.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Him Indoors celebrated a significant birthday this weekend (he's catching up with me) and, not wanting a party, chose instead to have those who wanted to join us for a five mile walk at the Hermitage, Dunkeld, on Saturday. It wasn't warm, but was fine if you kept moving, and it was sunny, and we had a lovely time. The photo of the "empty tomb" I posted for Easter Day yesterday is in fact the hermit's cave that you pass on the walk. Apparently there was never a real hermit in it. The Duke of Atholl allegedly paid a servant to pretend to be a hermit whenever he was taking his guests out for a walk. Shocking, eh? If you look closely at the photo you can see our kids' Auntie P. Here's the crew who assembled to help us mark the occasion.



And, finally, yesterday I was allowed to take 3 prisoners from the jail to our church for the Easter Day service where, at the coffee time afterwards, one of our members who is in his day job a Chief Inspector in the police (but at church is a Sunday School teacher and family man) gave them a creme egg each (left over from the ones that were given out to the kids). That's one of the things I like about church - it brings together wonderfully random combinations of people. I love the fact that even in just our church I have friends of all ages and from all types of background, in all levels of maturity in the Christian faith, and with problems and hang-ups and obstacles, just as I have, though not necessarily the same ones. Church is a great leveller. The guys enjoyed the service and indeed it was a great service yesterday and the church was bursting at the seams. The songs were good ones anyway but the big crowd made them sound even better.

Oh look who it is!

I took the kids to the cinema yesterday (to see Alvin and the Chipmunks if you want to know). We walked there and then we got the bus home.

As I was paying for one adult and four children and watching all the tickets come shooting out like a ticker tape parade, I heard "Hello, Anne!" behind me. I turned round and there was a fairly recently liberated life sentence prisoner I had come to know well!

A couple of weeks after liberation this man had phoned me at work to say he was missing jail. And yesterday he said that, over the first six weeks or so, he'd experienced a few panic attacks. He has found being out of jail very difficult. This is someone for whom prison is no punishment really - he is "jail-wide", which means he is so experienced in prison life he knows all the dodges and tricks. He knows how to get by in jail. He is looked up to by younger or more inexperienced inmates who come to him for advice. In jail, he IS someone, in a sense. Out of jail, he's - well, he probably feels he's a nobody. And the world has moved on, and he struggles. Alcohol's a big issue for him in the community whereas in jail he's not surrounded by the stuff.

If you're the praying kind, please pray for him. He used to come regularly to the services in jail but I wasn't always sure why! I would hate for him to resort to crime specifically in order to get back to jail where he feels comfortable. He lives within walking distance of our church and has promised many times to come "some time".

And pray for youngsters everywhere who're on the path to where that man is today. He's not particularly young - I believe he's a grandfather - but there are youngsters today in secure units who will get out briefly, get into more trouble, be re-arrested, will graduate to Young Offenders Institution, will get out briefly, get into more trouble, be re-arrested, go to Big Men's Prison, and become as institutionalised as my friend whom I've described. It's not right.

If Jesus had been born in Glasgow...

If Jesus had been born in Glasgow...

If you're from Glasgow, or probably anywhere in Scotland actually, you'll get this. Otherwise you won't. It's offensive, yes, but it's touching too, and funny and clever all at once. The bottle the guy in the yellow hoodie is holding is Buckfast wine - produced by monks and originally sold in chemists but now drunk by young teenagers on the streets. The reason I put it on the blog even though I suppose it's kinda blasphemous is that for me it says that Jesus came for this type of person too, and for all the many and varied types of people I come across in prison. The gospel's not for the posh only!!