The best is yet to come

It held my attention for some minutes, and set in train a memory of an emotionally charged supervisory experience during my time as a probation officer.

When I first met Candice (not her real name) she was in a distressed state. It soon became apparent that she was facing sentence at the Crown Court for importation of cannabis (at the time a class c drug).

Her involvement in the drugs market derived from what she referred to as a ‘favourite uncle’, who appeared to have duped his niece as someone who might be beyond suspicion (she had no previous convictions). But this ill-fated shipment was easily intercepted and traced to her.

Her ambition to go to University would, it appeared, and in spite of my half-hearted observations, have to be deferred.

Once she had calmed down a bit, it was clear that she was facing a real dilemma.

I advised her to contact her university to clarify options for deferring entry. “But Mr Guilfoyle, how long will I get?”.

Due to an unforeseen delay in the sentencing process, I was able to interview her for a second time and suggested that she prepare a raft of character references ahead of the date, which might help in mitigation, having seen the judge’s preliminary indication that custody was inevitable.

On the day of sentence, I contacted my probation colleagues at the Crown Court. They had read the report and supporting statements and averred that the judge in question, although firm, was also fair-minded and the sentence would reflect that.

Candice was sentenced to twelve months custody. The judge thanked me for my report and noted that the defendant was gullible but her culpability was tempered by the “exploitative intentions” of her uncle, who should be appearing for sentence in his own right.

The post-sentence cell interview revealed that, although sorrowful, Candice was “pleased” that her sentence was shorter than anticipated. She would be taken to HMP Holloway (since closed), before being ‘shipped out’ to a prison in the Midlands within a matter of days.

I contacted the prison to alert them to the fact that I was to remain her home probation officer. Candice provided a regular epistolary record of her time serving her sentence at the prison.

A planned early prison visit was unfortunately cancelled at short notice, which resulted in some feelings of hurt. Her family had opted to detach themselves from her life, considering her someone who had squandered a golden chance to get away from the crime ridden area she grew up in, and turn to drug taking.

In fact, there was nothing to indicate that Candice was a drug-user. Impulsive and misjudged loyalty, albeit with some financial pay off that would help her at university (she conceded in one of her letters), was behind her decision.

At the time, prison visiting was an integral part of through care practice, prior to a more restrictive organisational practice and the advent of video links.

Before I had arranged my prison visit, I received a unsettling call from the prison probation team to notify me that Candice had been “disruptive” and would be appearing before the Governor, at which meeting some sanctions might be imposed.

It was indicative of how unusual her situation was that I was even notified as the infraction seemed trivial. In the event, it appeared she had been ‘set up’ by other prisoners resentful of her animatedly expressed ambitions to proceed into higher education.

When I booked the prison visit I had read her latest letter, which was full of her renewed joy of learning. The university had agreed, in light of her sentence, to deferred admittance for a year.

On arrival at the prison it was eerily quiet, in the manner of many of the out of the way prisons I had visited over the years. The prison visitors centre was empty (family and social visits were in the morning). As I awaited Candice’s arrival, I mused at just how so many life-altering decisions constrained by circumstance seemed to echo from the hanging artwork and family related paraphernalia in this one room.

Candice entered the room with an ebullience that I found refreshing. “Mike, good to see you. What was the journey up like? I was squashed into a prison van so no sightseeing for me!”.

It was apparent that she had put her time at the prison to good use and some partial family reconciliation seemed in the offing.

“How long will my licence period be?” she asked. “Very short”, I noted, “and most likely will expire before your term date”. In fact there was a slight overlap.

When Candice reported on her release, she was weighed down with her prison work and seemed so positive that I could only affirm her commitment to return to her local community, her family and her studies.

She completed her brief term on licence and headed off to a delayed start to a new life as an undergraduate. Her final letter noted how she had jeopardised her chances, but this had been a truly salutary experience and she wanted to move head with her life and start afresh.

The quote from Antong Lucky’s memorable book is drawn from an entirely different context of gang-filled violence in east Dallas and references his desire at the time to disavow living life on the straight and narrow.

But for Candice, her ambition to return to life on the straight and narrow offered another possibility of following a redemptive path forward.

As she pointedly said, at the end of our prison visit, “Mike, just you watch, the best of Candice is yet to come!”.

Mike Guilfoyle is a retired probation officer.