My (short) Time Imprisoned

Do I love the police? No.

Do I like the police? Not really.

Time is the most valuable commodity there is; so valuable, in fact, that it is hails from the realm of the priceless. If you ask an old woman on her deathbed whether she'd rather have a bank full of money or six extra hours of life, there is only one thing she will choose. In fact, our salaries and wages that we earn are based solely on how much our time is worth.

In summary: time is precious.

When I received a call from the police telling me they wanted a 'chat' I agreed to meet them on a park near my house. A van, a car, and four police officers, met me there.

That 'chat' was them placing me under arrest and taking me to a police station 20 miles from where I live.

To my surprise, and slight amusement, 'Threat of violence' was the purported offence.

I knew what it was in reference to (somebody I have had a continued beef with), but the thing wasn't that explicitly threatening and I hadn't thought the person in question would be such a snitch. In context, which I shall not bore you with, it was justified.

So at 9:30AM, I was arrested.

I went with the police peacefully. They'll treat you well if you're nice to them, right?

It won't take up too much time, right?

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

6 hours. That is how long I sat in that godforsaken cell with nothing to do but get angrier and angrier.

Silver toilet, yellow walls, a blue mattress. The same cell which had, no doubt, kept murders and rapists and thieves detained. Now it was a home to me.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights' Article 6 states , “Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law”; this must surely mean that my time in the cell amounted to nothing less than false imprisonment.

I passed the first half an hour by singing various songs as loud as I could (for all its faults, the acoustics of the cell was quite exceptional) then rolled the mattress into a primitive punch bag and spent another 10 minutes throwing combinations at that. Then I paced and I paced and I paced.

After an age had passed, I pressed the 'call' button on the wall beside the toilet and waited for someone to come.

The police officer that arrived was the same one that had joked with me about where the DNA swab would go while I was being booked.

I asked him what time it was and what time my interview would be at.

'12:00 and soon' he told me'.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity and then pressed the button again.

The same officer arrived and again I asked him what time it was.

This time he aggressively asked me if I was taking the piss.

I flatly said 'what'.

To which he replied, 'you asked me that 45 minutes ago'

This annoyed me and I responded 'so it's quarter to 1 then? Why was that hard to just tell me? There's clearly no clocks in here'.

He responded by slamming closed the metal flap.

His action was a deciding point in how I treated my incarceration. No longer was I polite and courteous.

It occurred to me that once you are behind that metal door the police no longer have to banter with you or be pleasant - they have no further purpose for you; no longer any need to charm you into compliance so they can take your fingerprints or DNA swab with ease.

Charles Bronson is an infamous British prisoner who gained notoriety as the most violent prisoner in Britain. One of his favourite pastimes was to fight the prison guards. On one occasion he covered himself in butter, melted under his ball sack, and took on 12 prison officers.

I never understood that. How can you dislike 12 separate people enough to want to hurt all of them?

But, at 12:45 on the 20th of August, I finally understood. The prison officers were the representation of his imprisonment, and if you could attack your imprisonment it could only be cathartic. It doesn't matter whether they are good people with loving families or cruel, vindictive bastards, they are there with the express purpose of keeping you from your loved ones and friends.

If you take away someone's freedom you truly make a monster of them. What could be less natural than to be imprisoned?

As the desolation of my situation hit home, I became more desperate. I punched and kicked and elbowed the cell door, swearing at the officers and demanding to be released. I was able to calm myself for infrequent periods, as I was sure they wouldn't interview me if I was furiously hitting things, but when I thought about how unfair it was it would send me into another tirade of rage.

In a bid to be noticed, I covered the spyholes that officers look in through with paper and shouted 'help' repeatedly - I was convinced this would make someone come.

Nobody came. Even when they saw that they couldn't see into my room, they didn't care.

When I was put into the cell I had my joggers and shoes taken, so, in fairness there was no strangulation risk, but there were other ways I could have been trying to kill myself.

In the UK, in the year 2016, 135 people killed themselves in police custody or directly after being in police custody.

135 presumed-innocent people who were placed in a cell for hours with just their thoughts for company.

The statistics are just as harrowing in America and Australia. There seems to be an institutionalised lack of empathy prevalent in the police, internationally.

4 hours passed with zero human contact.

That was broken by a kind man.

A new officer had come on shift. He opened my metal flap as I was yelling and kicking the door and asked me what was wrong, with a look of actual concern on his face. I asked him if I could have some water, immediately defused by the fact he was being compassionate. He got me the water, and gave me an actual time for my interview.

I was unsure whether I would include him in this article; I don't particularly want to accept that one of my captors showed me compassion in the face of all the others who did not. It is almost like being passionately hugged by someone who is simultaneously choking you to death.

But, he did offer me a speck of kindness in an ocean of apathy.

It was 5pm when my interview was concluded and I was set free.

As much of a cliché as it is, the fresh air was truly amazing. It also felt quite cool to get my possessions handed back to me at the front desk like you see in the movies.

Of course, I now had no phone or access to Google maps, so the three mile walk to the train station meant asking a lot of people for directions.

An hour and a half later, I was home.

And that...

was my Thursday.

1 It is pertinent to note that the most recent 'death in custody' data available is from a 2017 report.