My name is Charlie Ryder and I am an artist, puppeteer, ex-prisoner and outreach worker at Wormwood Scrubs Community Chaplaincy.

I'm going to share some experiences of my own journey and how through creativity and healing I've found a road of forgiveness which has brought me in contact with some inspiring and courageous people whose stories have brought about great transformation in others. Volunteering at a holiday home for people with severe disabilities, I met a retired police officer who had been attacked on duty and which had left her paralysed. She told me that ‘she had joined the police to help people’ and I asked her if she hated the person who had injured her. She replied, ‘No, because there is too much hate in the world’.

Growing up with an alcoholic father has been extremely difficult. The constant arguments and verbal abuse brought a lot of emotional and physical pain. It was at college that a counsellor introduced me to Alateen, a 12-step fellowship for young people whose lives have been affected by alcoholism in a family member. There I found unconditional love and a rich ground for growth. Through listening to others share their experiences, I learnt a lot about alcoholism as a family disease. A few years later I went to study in Scotland. At the height of a nervous breakdown I was involved in a violent riot when I was protesting against racism.

A few months later I was featured on Crime Monthly (a programme which appealed for some of Britain’s most wanted criminals) and I was arrested the next morning.

After waiting nearly two years I was sent to prison for 16 months. While incarcerated, I kept a scrapbook where I could record my journey using letters, poems, short stories and artwork. This is one of those poems that really captured my prison experience by Judge Dennis Challeen, Supreme Court USA:

Prisoners 

We want them to have self worth. So we destroy their self worth 

To be responsible. So we take away all responsibility 

To be part of our community. So we isolate them from the community 

To be positive and constructive. So we degrade them and make them useless 

To be non violent so we put them where there Is violence all around 

To be kind and loving people. So we subject them to hatred and cruelty 

To quit being tough guys. So we put them where the tough guy is respected 

To quit hanging around losers. So we put all the losers under one roof 

To quit exploiting us. So we put them where they exploit each other 

We want them to take control of their own lives, own their own problems and quit being parasites

So we make them totally dependent on us.

On my release from prison I went back to Al-Anon, and by applying the 12 steps to my life I have grown mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I am grateful to Al-anon for giving me a healthy programme to live by and enjoy. Al-Anon gave me a space to heal and gave me the courage to develop my story into a one-man play using puppets, masks, dance, poetry and silence. My dad is still drinking, but through the programme I’m learning to forgive him.

Thanks for taking the time to read my story.

Risk and protective factors in the resettlement of imprisoned fathers with their families by the Ormiston Children and Families Trust and the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge is a recent study in the UK and Europe which investigates risk and protective factors in the resettlement of imprisoned fathers and their families. The research aims to assist the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and third sector organisations working to support families to develop more effective interventions for imprisoned fathers, their (ex)partners and their children.