On a bitterly cold February Friday in north London, the enormous wooden gate to Holloway prison rolls open and disgorges a small, lone woman. She is carries a standard-issue black nylon holdall. “Tanya?” calls Hayley, a charity worker who is waiting for her new client. Like all of the other women who have left the prison that morning, this one looks hopeful for a moment, even though it isn’t her name that’s been called, as if she might catch the tail end of a lifeline that’s been thrown to someone else. But then reality strikes. She is not Tanya. And so she scuttles off, into the void, with £46 ‘release money’ in her pocket and, most likely, very little else.
Hayley, who works on the St Giles Trust’s Wire project– which helps women prisoners with complex issues – settles back down on the damp bench to wait and watch. Prisoners can be released any time after 9am, and she doesn’t want Tanya to give her the slip. “Sometimes clients try to dodge you,” she tells me. “They’re full of good intentions before they come out, but then they’re overwhelmed by temptation – they’ve got a few pounds in their pocket, they’ve got their freedom, and they go off to score or get drunk.”
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