We have reached mid-October in the UK. The summer is behind us which means one thing – we’re going to spend the next four months exasperated at the weather in Britian. We love to talk about the weather in the UK. A South African friend of mine recently told me it was the most noticeable thing about moving to the country, which is underwhelming in all fairness.
While we (and I include myself) will undoubtedly moan about the punishing rain and winds in the months to come, many of us have will have the haven of a warm place to go to work and spend the night. This is unfortunately not the case for Leon Lear in Wales. Leon was the subject of a recent Sky News interview titled: “Early release of prisoners sparks fears of rising homelessness and reoffending”.
In the 8-minute video interview, journalist Jason Farrell spends two days with Leon to understand the plight he faces as a homeless man released early under the new scheme. It is a thought-provoking interview that I thought should be highlighted and analysed to dispel narratives surrounding prisoners and rough sleepers.
The most noticeable takeaway I had from the piece centred on Leon himself. Leon was extremely polite and well-mannered. He articulated his ongoing struggle very clearly and Farrell referenced the fact he repeatedly apologised for being the way he was. This is important as many of the typical attitudes towards people without a place to stay or normally anything but polite or well-mannered.
The only item belonging to Leon was a toothbrush. He admitted to stealing the clothes he was wearing on the very day of the interview, which he admitted to being embarrassed about. Leon, who has six sugars in his coffee to boost his energy levels, was released five weeks early due to the new scheme introduced by the government in September. For this reason, there were no contingencies in place to accommodate him and he was immediately back to sleeping rough. When he did find a place to stay, other occupants were regular heroin users and he fell back into what he described as a “habit”.
Following three years off the class A drug, Leon was addicted once again within days of leaving prison because he could not locate a safe place to lay his head. In addition to the rediscovered “habit”, Leon had fallen into the all-too-common trend of shoplifting to fuel his addiction. In a matter of weeks, Leon had once again become reliant on a morphinan opioid substance and had to commit petty crimes to sustain this. In totality, Leon was jailed and subsequently released twice for separate incidents in the space of four months as a direct response to sleeping rough.
When the Sky News cameras were following him, he showed what his average day looks like. With a daily appointment to pick up methadone to help stay off the heroin, he largely spent his time walking around in the cold and dropping in on his local foodbank. He also took the reporter to the park where he attempted to sleep before. He gathered damp wood to start an impromptu fire in a secluded park, but the fire wouldn’t sustain for more than 20 minutes even with firelighters. He chose the secluded park so that he wouldn’t be a burden to local residents, once again displaying his consideration. The following night, he was allowed to stay in an A&E waiting room after medics provided him sleeping medication. He managed to get two hours of peace.
Leon spoke of his exasperation of daily life sleeping rough:
“If it gets much colder, I’m thinking of doing something just to go back inside. I’ve done a winter before and it’s horrific”.
With the weather on the turn, you can be sure that Leon is one of many people without stable accommodation who will be offering similar sentiments. Leon spoke of potentially smashing a window or acting drunk and disorderly to spend a night in a jail cell where he would receive a hot meal and a blanket.
“I’d rather be in jail than live like this much longer. I’m fed up with this life, I don’t see a way out of it.
Leon is one of thousands of homeless people who believe they have nowhere to turn. Prison to many of us would seem like the worst-case scenario in most situations and crime series we will binge watch throughout the winter months, however to the people having to bear the weather brunt throughout the night it is deemed optimally convenient.
Sky News also interviewed Martin Jones – Inspector of Probation, to get a better understanding of this commonly held point of view. Jones posited that not having stable accommodation at the point of release is the “most critically important factor” in reoffending. Farrell also alluded to the issue, saying that people being recalled to jail has doubled in the last decade. Recent findings from The Independent compound the issue and highlight the precarious cycle many of those released early face. One month prior to the fist batch of early prisoner releases, the online newspaper released their findings showing that in just a year, more than 9,200 ex-prisoners left jail only to become homeless, which is a 30% rise on the previous year. It should be reaffirmed that these figures were also just weeks before thousands of prisoners were released early.
The cycle of leaving prison with nowhere to stay, turning to drugs to ease the burden and then reoffending either to supplement the drugs or to end up back in prison is difficult to tackle. Many dedicated charities and food banks do their best to combat the problem, however government funding needs to be more readily available for preventative purposes.
I would encourage everyone to watch the video of Leon’s story which also outlines the good work of the foodbank and the empathetic medics in the local area. You can find the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FslMClRXp-Y