Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T14:17:29.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

My prison experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Visiting an inner-city prison as a medical student, I was unsure how I would respond to this mass incarceration of life. The anxiety manifesting in my stomach as I passed through the entrance gate, the fear of how inmates would respond to me and of names they might call. Corridors were cold, stark, echoic, with a constant reminder of inmates' plight to end their lives in the endless safety netting; calls from unknown locations and cells with no relief. I don't have a mental illness, yet I felt anxious and paranoid. It left me very concerned for those that do.

Type
100 Words
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2009 

Visiting an inner-city prison as a medical student, I was unsure how I would respond to this mass incarceration of life. The anxiety manifesting in my stomach as I passed through the entrance gate, the fear of how inmates would respond to me and of names they might call. Corridors were cold, stark, echoic, with a constant reminder of inmates' plight to end their lives in the endless safety netting; calls from unknown locations and cells with no relief. I don't have a mental illness, yet I felt anxious and paranoid. It left me very concerned for those that do.

Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.