Three former prisoners create 'life after prison' map of Cork city
St Vincent's Hostel in Cork city, a shelter for homeless men, is decribed as 'soul-destroying'.
Three men who spent time in prison have created ‘life after prison maps’ of Cork city in the hope of improving post-release procedures and supports for others leaving jail.
The maps feature some of the locations and services the men had to or chose to visit after their release from prison, as they sought to chart a new course in life and reintegrate into society.
They also include personal notes on why the men visited these locations and how they felt about doing so.
The maps provide a remarkably personal insight into the struggles faced by those upon their release from prison, and the interactions they have in the city.
The care of charity services is contrasted with the bleak experiences of men and women sleeping rough on the city’s streets.
But St Vincent’s Hostel on Anglesea Terrace, the first stop on one of the maps, is described by one of the men as “soul-destroying”.
“Sending a person there with addiction issues after prison, it’s like setting them up to fail,” he said.
The so-called ‘robot trees’ on St Patrick’s St are on a map, with criticism for the spending of so much public money on them at a time of record homelessness.
Nearby, outside the Savoy, the Helping Hand charity group is praised for giving out food and clothes to people in need, and there are maps of locations where people are found sleeping in the doorways of shops on the city’s main street.
There are stops of happiness too, thanks to social gatherings outside the library on the Grand Parade, and buskers outside the GPO on Oliver Plunket St.
But there is a very bleak side too, as one of the men recalls meeting a homeless couple on Oliver Plunkett Street, who in less than a year went from working to being forced by high rent to live in a car, to homelessness, during which time they developed a heroin addiction to “black out the misery of the day”.
The maps are part of a University College Cork (UCC) research project entitled Clean Slate Cork that engages men with past criminal convictions as peer-to-peer researchers to document and analyse the challenges they faced navigating social reintegration with a criminal record.
The project works in partnership with Cork Alliance Centre, a voluntary group based in Cork City which supports people who want to make a fresh start after prison.
Three peer researchers with criminal justice experience, Paul O’Rourke, Tony Kenny, and Keith Purcell, conducted research interviews with other men about their experiences of life after prison.
They created biographical walking maps designed in collaboration with UCC Geography cartographer Mike Murphy.
The men said they wanted to take part to raise awareness that people with difficult pasts can create great futures and to highlight that people leaving prison not be put into homeless accommodation.
The Clean Slate Cork project recently won a 2022 Cork City Council Lifelong Learning award in the ‘adult education in the community category.
Funded under the New Foundations Scheme by the Irish Research Council, it was initiated by Dr Katharina Swirak, at UCC’s department of sociology and criminology, and CEO of Cork Alliance, Sheila Connolly, and supported by research assistant Barbara O’Driscoll and psychotherapist Anna Dudek.
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