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If I ever get sent down, give me a choice between six months inside, to be led away in handcuffs, or a year of hard time but with the dignity of going to the prison van with my arms folded, and I will choose the latter, writes John Waters.

There are certain addresses for which neither jail sentences nor handcuffs hold much terror, but for the rest of us the prospect of either is a nightmare scenario. However, it is one thing to be imprisoned on behalf of society, and quite another to be got up in such a way on the way to the van as to be stripped of all dignity, shamed before family and neighbours, clearly signalled as no longer a full citizen, but something else: a common criminal, a jailbird, a lag.