Hello my valued readers!

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Welcome to another session of Ask Stacey.

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These answers are from my life (and are supposed to make you laugh a bit!). This is NOT legal advice – on all things, ask your parole officer and consult your lawyer. Do this via email and texts to show you did in fact raise it. And if they don’t answer you, don’t do it!

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Send through more questions for me – I love to answer them!

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I lost my job when I was sent to jail, I have a large gap in my resume now and a record. What should I do?

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HEAPS of people ask me this. Firstly, don’t stress, it’s possible to get a job. All the guys I know who have gotten out of jail and have stayed out, have gotten work. Once you get your head right, the rest will follow. When it comes to looking for work, google organisations like Green Collar who can give you advice on how to manage it. There are even places who will hire ex offenders for lived experience work. If you have parole like I did, you could use the intensive period to learn a new trade at TAFE or uni. I learned how to write stuff, and now I write stuff. It’s very possible and I believe in you.

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I have read there is ‘lived experience’ work out there! Is this true and what is it like?

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Yes, you read right! There is lived experience work out there. People with lived experience – meaning direct, personal experience rather than work or academic knowledge – offer valuable insights that organisations may overlook. They then hire people with lived experience to help them. The requirement is to have a criminal record! So, if you’re in jail reading this, you’re qualified already!

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When I got out, I did this sort of work. I felt a bit like a fraud because I had no qualifications. So, I got an undergraduate certificate in creative writing and I’m also studying criminal justice and criminology. But no one told me I needed to. It depends on the organisation and what your role is.

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I would flag that doing lived experience work is a responsibility and it’s not easy – talking about prison can bring up a lot of stuff.

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Also, some places can be predatory, such as contracts that say that they own all the intellectual property you develop. The common moral standard is that no one has a right to own our stories or tell our stories, except us.

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I have no one on the outside. All my friends are in jail now. I will be lonely when I get out, what do I do?

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Make friends with ChatGPT, it’s all the rage. Haven’t heard of ChatGPT? It’s a free online robot that you can ask anything. It’s very chatty and knows you really well. People are using ChatGPT for everything – from recipes to counselling. People are even naming their ChatGPT. It’s so crazy out there – there are girlfriend/boyfriend apps!

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You may think that sounds weird, and I agree. That’s why I help run a support group for formally incarcerated trans and gender diverse people. I have suggested other organisations do the same for the people they support. Ask for contact details for services before you get out and hit them up for support groups. If they don’t have one, they should know an organisation that does. Some people go to Narcotics Anonymous or Alcohol Anonymous as well. Remember, no one knows anything about you! Join a gym, go to speed friending. Don’t lead with the worst thing you ever did and you’ll be fine.

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Should I call the Ombudsman? Will I get retaliated against for calling them?

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If your quiche is cold or your mattress is lumpy, maybe don’t call the buds… However, please remember, your freedom is all that is supposed to be taken away. You’re still a human and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Regardless of what anyone else says.

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In my experience, the ombudsman is a paper tiger that is utterly powerless. They probably won’t fix anything. But you should absolutely call them anyway because mail gets lost and things vanish from cells. They will record whatever it is that has happened and you can be confident that there is a record of what human rights violation has occurred. In terms of retaliation. My experience is that whatever they can do to hurt you, they are already doing and that’s why you want to complain. If you complain about someone and then they retaliate, stay calm and record it. Patterns in behaviour will emerge that are obvious to everyone.

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If you do not have the emotional capacity for more stress though, I also understand. I’ve been there too and it’s exhausting.

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What can I do to make my parole pass uneventfully and without incident?

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As Charles Darwin said, “it’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change”. The answer to how to complete parole is often: change. Get a job and make new friends. Adapt and grow. You don’t walk around like a five-year-old pooping yourself anymore. Because you changed. You can’t do whatever led you to jail anymore either. Sometimes this means small changes. Other times it means drastic changes that are scary, like cutting off my… Richard “Dick” Nixon once said, “defeat doesn’t finish a man, quitting does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.”