For any person in prison and coming up for release within the next year, have you ever thought about what your transitional worker should be doing?

This is a very special Ask Stacey, as I finished parole! And the questions came from all sorts of different people in the justice system.

Hello my valued readers! Welcome to another session of Ask Stacey.

Talking about prison once you’re out in the community can be challenging. It’s difficult to know the right thing to say, or how people might react.

You had questions, we listened! These answers are from my life (and are supposed to make you smile a bit!).

You may be following in an age-old tradition of this county by languishing in one of his Majesty’s prisons, but you are not forgotten!

What you need to survive in prison is different to what you need on the outside. Many people have said that the first few weeks out were harder than their time inside. Coping with money problems, dealing with other people and feeling like you don’t belong in society can take a toll.

Walking out of jail here in Perth wasn’t the moment my life changed.

When the walls close in, both physically and mentally, it is easy to feel like the person you once was has been lost. For many, incarceration becomes not only a punishment but a pause. A disconnection from one’s true self.

At first, it felt like nobody wanted to give me a chance. But, eventually, one employer took a chance on me. That warehouse job may not have looked like much to others, but to me it was everything: it gave me purpose, structure and, most of all, hope.