The season of goodwill to all…

The use of imprisonment is already barbaric in this country. Planning to build new super-prisons called titans is a destructive and sadistic act, unethically perpetrated by politicians and bureaucrats who patently know better.

With over two-thirds of ex-prisoners committing further crimes in the two years after release, we all know prison doesn’t work. Dangerous people do have to be imprisoned, but the rest (the majority) can serve sentences in the community, in ways that address rather than reinforce criminality.

Criminologists nowadays accept that the prison environment is in itself criminogenic; that is, it causes people to become more criminal. This is hardly surprising. The focus of criminogenic behaviours is lack of empathy, alienation and failure to think before doing something – and it’s certainly not easy to hold onto thinking in prison.

Prison is a harsh place, with over-crowding leading to more lock-up in the cell and little activity. Prison makes people frustrated, stressed and despairing; powerless and desperate for privacy because of cell-sharing; often unsafe, cut off from the outside world and ostracised by its citizens.

No wonder people come out of prison screwed up. Bear in mind that we are doing this to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities; people who have been let down by their families, the welfare services, doctors and health units.

The government itself knows, states, that 72% or male and 70% of female sentenced prisoners have two or more mental disorders. It knows that mental health issues among prisoners are often linked to previous experiences of violence and sexual abuse. It knows that 30% of prisoners will be completely homeless on release.

Jack Straw, our Orwellian Justice Secretary, has known this since the government first released figures in 2002, when he was Home Secretary.

“The government will not be able to build its way out of the prison crisis” Straw said in July 2007 when interviewed by The Times. But then, in December, he allocated an extra £1.2bn to build three “titan” jails containing 2,500 inmates each. This is on top of £1.5bn already committed for prison expansion. Orwellian indeed.

Knowing what he knows, Straw and his colleagues are guilty of perpetrating a huge injustice on this country. Meanwhile, nobody in politics seems prepared to stick their head above the parapet and denounce this Emperor with No Clothes.
 

Crimble behind bars

Christmas is a miserable affair in prison. People become even more acutely aware of their separation from their families and, because few staff are happy to work over the holidays, you tend to get more ‘bang up’ in the cell than usual.  But prisoners do find ways to get a little enjoyment (I could mention the hooch but I won’t).

Incarcerated at Highpoint during the turn of the millennium, this is how I experienced New Year’s Eve:

At 7.30pm we are back locked behind the spurs, early again so that the screws can go off and enjoy themselves. People make last minute phone calls.

“You’ll be sure to see them every day,” says one woman as I pass. Our children, oh how we miss them, and how they must miss us. I look at the photos of the family stuck onto my cupboard, imagining what they are up to right now: maybe Rachel will be raving it up with her boyfriend in Cambridge and Gordon and Joel will be together at home. Grace sticks her head round the door.
“What are you doing? Come an’ join the party.”

Everyone is gathered on the central landings, all of us squeezed together behind the thick white bars of the spur gates. I have two sets to the back of me and three in front, familiar faces behind them all. Someone puts Radio One on loud, and here it comes, the final countdown: 5-4-3-2-1. We erupt, yelling, whistling, a-huggin’ and a-kissin’, scenes being repeated throughout the country. The music rings out. A large black woman smashes a cake tin repeatedly against a wall, the noise reverberating……..

Fifteen minutes later everything has died down. I chat awhile to Annette, a Yorkshire lass doing four years, and then I am back in my room and like most of the others thinking about those on the out, straining to pick up their thoughts on the ether.

“From the Inside” Aurum Press 2003