A conundrum

If we are not supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?

Misunderstanding

The woman in Control shouts over the Tannoy, " I will be showing Snatch on the video channel. I repeat, there will be Snatch on the video channel."

There was a mad rush back to our cells to switch on the telly, followed by the collective sign of disappointment as a Guy Richie film began to play...

Am I an Alcoholic?

You would be amazed at the proportion of murders in which alcohol played a significant part in the unfolding of tragic events. You may think, then, that someone might be interested in how I handle my drink.

Of course, booze is officially prohibited in prison. Until recently, we could be issued a tot by the Doctor but, even though this has never happened, someone in HQ decided to shut that loophole.

This doesn't mean that there isn't booze around, in the form of  ‘hooch’.  Home brewed concoctions of chemical ingenuity, brewed in odd hiding places and shifted around the prison in secret operations until ready to drink. I have no problem in saying that I'm not a bad brewer, having in years past earned a few pennies by flogging hooch.

That said, I can't recall the last time I had a drink. I can take it or leave it, my preference is for cannabis. But I have known those who start the day with a drink and whose sole aim in life is finding the next one.

Of course, you only have my word for this. For all anyone knows, I'm an absolute piss head, and one who gets violent with it. I may know that I'm a contented drunk, slowly leaning sideways at ever increasing angles the more I imbibe. But you don't know that. 

More significantly, neither do my keepers. At no point during my sentence can I have alcohol. Even in Open prison, where we are meant to be tested for our reactions to the outside world, it is prohibited. When we work outside or go on home leaves, it is on condition that we don't enter licensed premises.

This highlights the tension between rehabilitation and punishment. Open prisons are meant to test us but at the same time they try to prohibit anything that we may enjoy,  so no booze and no relationships. These only happen to be the two elements that are involved in most murders.

So when do we find out how I handle alcohol? When I am finally released. It could be when I'm sitting in a restaurant in good company with a glass of wine. Or it could be as I'm staggering along the road, Special Brew in hand, taking wild swings at passers-by.

I would have thought that the prison service, my keepers for most of my life, owes society a bit more certainty when it finally kicks me out, don't you?

Egomania

Has any blogger, ever, just packed it in having declared, "sorry, I
have run out of things to say"?

Reconstructing Truth

I assume the Editor of the Daily Telegraph is a fan of Joseph Goebels and his dictum that if you shout a lie loud enough, people will believe it.

There can be no other rational reason to explain the front page story on 16 Nov 09 - "Crowded prisons sending killers on 'holiday'." Oh, there are other potential explanations. Incompetence. Stupidity. Malevolence. Political spin. I'll just de-construct this web of deceit and let you decide whether it was deliberate lies or merely lazy journalism.

Having set the stage with that headline, the first paragraph sets up the stall for the following story. "Murderers, rapists and other prisoners are being allowed up to 100 days "holiday" away from their cells to ease the pressure on overcrowded prisons."

Let's tease out the fragments of reality from this fiction. At the end of their sentences, in Open prison, people like me spend increasing amounts of time out in the community. That is the nature and purpose of "resettlement", to prepare us to re enter society after what may be decades in prison. A slow transition is meant to both test us and prepare us. A good idea in principle, yes? The alternative being to drag a man from his dungeon of twenty years and plonk him straight into the flat next to where you live.

After several months of working out in the community for 4 days a week (unpaid, argh!), we can apply for home leave. These can last up to five days at a stretch. Don't be deceived by the "home leave" description. Rather than putting our feet up in front of the fire at home, cold beer in one hand and hot woman in the other, the reality is that we are forced to go to probation hostels.

Five days in a bail hostel, with a curfew, no drinking allowed, stuffed full of teenage car thieves and smack addicts, sharing a room, with no money, not allowed to begin personal relationships and probably in a town you have never previously set eyes on. That is meant to give us a taste of living at home, whereas most prisoners see it as an ordeal of monumentally stupid proportions. Most of these hostels are worse than the Open prisons the lifers may have come from. But these sojourns now find themselves firmly categorised as "holidays". The guys in the Telegraph office will be disappointed if we swap a week in Ibiza for this experience.

Where did the "100 days" come from? Well, if you add up the maximum number of days we can apply to spend in these hostels, each year it comes to 96 days per year. So with tabloid ease, four days a month per year in a bail hostel becomes a 100 day holiday. Simple, innit?

As is standard these days, the Telegraph even found a "victims campaigner" to pitch in. Lyn Costello of Mothers Against Murder And Aggression (as opposed to all those mothers campaigning for butchery and mayhem), complains about these "holidays". She used that exact word. You can see what happened; the Telegraph phoned her, read her a paragraph with the key words - killers, rapists, holidays - and like a defective one armed bandit she spat them a quote straight back.

So far, so stupid. But Lyn Costello and her group are deeply involved with perpetual consultations with policy makers. To be frank, I expect those who hold such positions to engage their brain before opening their mouths. If you don't know about something, feel free not to comment upon it. But this continues her prior form for ignorant ranting. Last year, when a Judge had cause to produce a pen-knife in the course of a trial, she was so outraged at this wicked wielding of a weapon that she demanded he be sacked. Lyn Costello sees a cause and instinctively bites.
As one reads deeper into the story it becomes clear what this is really about. The figures for the number of prisoners having these "holidays" were released by the Conservative Party. Their mouthpiece, Dominic Grieve, is arguing that this all stinks of Labour incompetence. Whilst in favour of these temporary releases for long-termers to ease the transition into the community, Grieve is claiming that they are being let out solely to ease the prison overcrowding.

I assume Dominic Grieve is a reasonably bright chap, so I will explain to him why he is wrong. When a man goes on home leave, his cell remains empty. He moves straight back in on his return. It is not the case that an Open prison with 50 men on home leave will ship in 50 prisoners to fill those beds for the 4 days they are empty. It is clear to even the dumbest politico that these home leave releases have absolutely no effect on overcrowding, they are not connected in any way whatever. None. Zilch. Zero. Grieve may know this, but he should know it - he should have checked.

And yet we have the man who may be the next Justice Secretary pushing some statistics at the Telegraph, supplying them an anti-Labour explanation, and watching them run with it. Rope in a Victims Representative to add some outrage, and this is a perfect story.

The Truth is duller. The story would read -"Long term prisoners in Open prisons are forced to stay in bail hostels each month in aid of easing their passage into the community. It has been going on for decades. This has no effect on prison overcrowding."

When people ask why I decided to blog, it was out of frustration at the level of the debate around prisons. The anger I felt at the media’s lazy and distorted coverage had been bubbling away for years, and blogging offered the opportunity to pitch in with another perspective.

This Telegraph story perfectly illustrates the problem. A media outlet which is happy to be spun a story that fits its political agenda; a Tory spokesman willing to ignore the truth in favour of kicking his opposition; and a rent a quote victim adding spice.

The effects of this farce isn't just to degrade the public debate, it could cost lives. If Jack Straw lives up to his knee jerk reputation he will have already voiced his concern to the prison service. Governors being managerialist puppets, I can easily see those in charge of Open prisons now hesitating before they sign the temporary release licence. Fewer long term prisoners could be going to work outside or being dumped in bail hostels.

Why should you care? Because, much as I despise the system of Open prisons and hostels, they do serve one broad useful purpose. They "test" a man; they give him more rope to hang himself. And as a general proposition I would rather find out if a man is unstable or dangerous whilst he is in Open or a hostel, because the alternative is to kick him out at the end of his sentence without this testing. The people who find out if he remains dangerous are then his neighbours.

Dominic Grieve has done a massive disservice to criminal justice in spinning this story. He has chosen to opt for short term electoral gain, and I doubt has even considered the very real consequences that could flow from his intervention.
Every story I see in the media around prisons carries some of these flaws and this distorted information then becomes the basis for popular discourse. Debates are needed around imprisonment, but how is this ever going to be possible when people are fed a constant diet of distortion? Please bear this in mind the next time you read a prison news story. And someone shoot me if I ever descend to a similar level of distortion in my writing.

Growing up in Prison

Those unfamiliar with the prison system may be surprised to learn that, having captured me at the age of 14, they paid absolutely no attention to my social or psychological development. Those who are familiar with the system will shrug their shoulders; nothing new here.

Being a teenager is a formative period, where expressions of individuality and attempts to explore identity are perfectly normal and crucial. But that is outside.
Inside, however, in a highly regulated and controlled environment, these are seen as expressions of defiance and being anti authority. Just by being a normal kid, attempting to make sense of the world, leads to being labelled as awkward if not downright subversive.

Oddly enough, a battery of psychometric testing in the 1990's revealed, to wide surprise, that my development had left me within the normal range. Considering the circumstances, I must have done something right.

I have met others who entered prison at a young age and some of them are positively retarded emotionally and socially. Their experience has left them crippled for life.

The difference between those who develop normally and those who are left underdeveloped seems obvious to me. It rests on compliance; a "good prisoner" is a compliant, unquestioning one. But whilst good prisoners may keep the institution content, it undermines individuality and it is that sense of Self that is important in the wider society. Good prisoners don't necessarily make good citizens.

And so I would suggest that whilst my particularly sharp awkwardness in those early years may have displeased my keepers, it was essential if I was to develop into a reasonable adult individual.

Such a pity that I had to kick against the grain to achieve this, and I worry about the many youngsters who are nowadays thrown into prison and expected to behave like automatons. What sort of adults will they be? When I shaved my head at 17, I was slung in solitary for two weeks. I can only hope things have improved. The cynic in me can't help but worry, though.

The Death Penalty

It is a strange feeling, writing this whilst knowing that there are people out there who would like to see me killed. Nothing personal, I appreciate that, but still...

There are many things that I just don't understand about the death penalty. What I do understand, though, is the visceral urge on the part of some victims to destroy the criminal. When my sister was killed, I spent a long time devising ingenious ways of inflicting suffering on her killer. This, I think, is not unusual.

Of the things I don't understand, though, most are philosophical rather than practical.

For example, it is said that human life is so valuable that to extinguish it is the most heinous of crimes. Given the low value society attributes to human life in general, though, I doubt that proposition. Still, let's run with it.

Life is so precious that we should kill those who take it. Am I the only one who sees the conceptual knot in that reasoning?? Either life is sacred, or it isn't. If it is, how can we sanction State killing of criminals? I have never understood this. I honestly don't.

My other problem is that there are those victims who claim (in advance) that executing the Bad Man will make them feel better. Really? I worry about anyone who would take pleasure in the death of another human being. That is just the type of emotion that serial killers are said to have. Crowds who gather outside of prisons, clustering around hot dog stands and waving placards, are worrying. They show a delight in death that makes murderers blush.

The main source of emotional pain, surely, comes from the loss of the murdered victim and not the continued existence of the murderer? And there is no external act that can heal that wound. No matter how many people are hung, electrocuted or gassed, the loved one remains dead. So I have to wonder, does executing the murderer actually do anything for that pain? And in what way?

There is also the knotty problem that executing the murderer inflicts upon their family the very pain that the killer himself inflicted, and which is the reason for him being executed. Is it me, or is this all very convoluted and actually morally incomprehensible?

There were many moments when I would have happily seen my sisters killer executed, preferably by being dipped in acid whilst rats gnawed at extremities. The urge to lash out at those who hurt us is normal. It doesn't mean that these urges are allowed to be acted upon. I would never dream of asking that my basest urges be translated into public policy.

As the years have passed and I can become more reflective about my sister’s death, I have become convinced that what I want of her killer is to know that she has an understanding of what she has done. I want to know that she carries that weight on her conscience.

Killing her would be pointless. It would not heal my wound. Imprisoning her would also have no impact. All that would satisfy me is to look into her eyes and see the depths of her regret for what she did, to see that part of her that will never be the same in the full knowledge of her actions.

Four Books Saved My Life

I can chart fundamental changes in my life to a handful of books. They affected me at particular moments of my life and altered the way I saw myself, my place in the world, and the potential that I contain for internal and external change.

There was a short time, early in my sentence, when I mistakenly decided that as my crime resulted from an outburst of emotion, then emotions must be "bad". As a result I began making deliberate efforts to suppress my emotions, expending huge efforts of will running around inside my own head to squash them as soon as they appeared. And this was a path destined to lead to either insanity or real, long term dangerousness.

Someone threw me a book, 'Zen Flesh, Zen Bones'. It contained brief explanations of Zen Buddhism, koans and parables. Even as a callow teen, it suggested to me that suppressingemotions was ridiculous and unnecessary. Zen practice offered me a path where emotions were fine, because one needn't be controlled by emotions but rather could accept them whilst being detached from them. Off I went on a 15 year journey into Soto Zen.

Not many Professors would bother reading a letter from a 17 year old in prison, let alone reply, so I have to thank Paul Rogers at Bradford School of Peace Studies for not dismissing me all those years ago.

I had come across his book, the Guide to Nuclear Weapons and it absorbed me completely. This was the height of the early 1980's Cold War, cruise missiles, Greenham Common. I was fascinated and, having spotted an apparent error in a table of Minuteman III ICBM, I wrote to Prof Rogers.

This book sent me off on a binge relating to all things nuclear, mostly legit but some the sort of stuff that would have me under a Control Order if I did it nowadays.

Nuclear weapons led me to nuclear physics and chemistry, mathematics, international relations, politics, strategy, game theory, psychology and history. The deeper one wishes to understand a concept or item, then the deeper one must examine all of its component parts.

Inevitably, I bumped into nuclear safety and terrorism. Theories of terrorism led me deeper into political theory, particularly legitimacy. This led to Peace Studies, which then led to where I am today - active nonviolence.

That was a twenty five year intellectual journey, all flowing from one book. It is also the basis for my theory of education: find what a person is interested in, and from that springboard they will be motivated to learn.

Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago is one of my favourite books to take with me whenever I may be slung into solitary. It is masterpiece of writing that I dream to be able to aspire to emulate. He has the remarkable ability of presenting a history of the gulags whilst simultaneously highlighting the overwhelming importance of the minutiae of confinement. Solzhenitsyn reveals the resilience of the individual against the State, in the most appalling circumstances. This is a lesson I can never hear enough of and one that should be propagated as widely as possible. It is the triumph of the human spirit.

Collected Writing of Martin Luther King: If Solzhenitsyn highlights the resilience of individuals against the State, MLK explores the methodology that is able to change the dominant, oppressive source of Power. Another book that I could read endlessly, exploring the internal changes that nonviolent action can provoke as well as revealing the inherent weakness of authority in the face of implacable individuals.

Together these four books have helped me to the spiritual, intellectual and political position that I hold. Without them, who knows what sort of person I could have become?

Eye for an eye?

What should be the penalty for murder? Bear in mind this applies to me, please!

Identity Theft

One of the first things that happens on being received into prison at the beginning is that we are issued a unique identifying number. Mine is K12612 and it has become as much a part of my identity as my name.

Every form, every process or procedure, each time we sign our name or present ourselves, we reiterate our number. Although it begins as being part of the process of what Goffman termed 'mortification', a part of the scheme to undermine individual identity; as the years pass we somehow make it our own.

In a strange way, our number can even give more of a glimpse into who we are than our name. From my number it can be seen that my first step into detention was at Pucklechurch remand centre as a youngster; which is the origin of the "K" in the number. The numerals, being five instead of four of them, show that I have been in for decades.

This tells people something. That I have great experience, that I'm on 'old birdman'. Couple that with my apparent sanity and it suggests resilience, a refusal to abandon the fight to maintain some sort of individuality. In some places, in years past, a number such as mine evoked a small measure of initial respect from fixed termers and new lifers. I say initial respect because if a man is an arse then no matter how long he has done he is still an arse!

In this way, prisoners endowed their numbers with a meaning that rebuffs the intent of it being a dehumanising mark stamped on by the institution.

Now we hear that they are taking all our numbers off us and reissuing new ones. We have reached the stage where so many people are being thrown into prison that they have run out of numbers! These new marks will be anodyne, devoid of the informative characteristics of the present ones. In a twist that I would never have predicted, some of us are grumbling because they are attached to their number. If you carry a mark for much of your life, no matter how disfiguring, it can become a part of you and to have it exchanged can be unsettling.

This episode also gives an insight into prison service mentality. Did we find out about this identity theft from an official notice? Some announcement, coupled with an explanation? Of course not. We have to find out from other cons in far flung prisons, who have already been subject to this process. Yet again, the institution reveals a profound ignorance of what things mean to prisoners, and an indifferent disregard for discovering. This is far more dehumanising that being stamped with a Number.

My Future

One of the most depressing conversations I ever took part in occurred in Open prison. George was about to be released after serving 40 years and I was curious as to his future plans.

"A few months in a probation hostel, then see what happens." I was stunned. He'd spent the last few years in Open, a place allegedly intended to give us some future focus, and George was leaving without a single idea or skill with which to rebuild his life.

As a lifer, it is very easy to sink into adopting a very short term view. Our lives are not our own and it can be deeply depressing to attempt to plan for a release which may never come. Looking a few days ahead is as far as some of us dare go. At the moment, I am maintaining my sanity by not even looking ahead to tomorrow.

In the last decade or so, though, I have become increasingly focused upon my possible future. What do I do when I am released? Despite the strange life I have lived, I do have a broad skill set ranging from mediation through to E-Commerce. Completing the PhD will equip me with general research skills, and may even lead to a minor career in criminology.

Although I have been writing for many years for the prisoner’s national newspaper (insidetime.org), as well as for various campaign groups and prison magazines, I was taken by surprise when someone described me as "a writer".

Assuming my fan is correct, perhaps I could and should develop this as a way to pay the rent in my post prison future? But in what way?

Transfer Vultures

I have inherited a shiny new plastic jug to drink coffee from, and a large blue wooden box with the house number 13 screwed on the front.

Such are the spoils from people transferring elsewhere. As soon as the word spreads that someone is on their way, others begin to sidle up to him to ask what he's leaving behind. Prime items are electrical goods, stereo, Play Station and the like. If they are parted with, it is to best mates or the highest bidder.

The rest of us make do with useful odds and ends. A decent chair, handy table, lengths of shelving and the like. Even bits of string are blagged; the beginnings of a clothes line.

The plastic jug will be very useful. The wooden box is more a 'because it was there' type of thing; I'm not at all sure what will become of it. Perhaps I will put it out on the landing, where another person will find it and give it a home. We may be vultures, but like all scavengers we are also great re-cyclers.

Urinal Fishing

It could be the title of a new, rather strange, game invented by men with too much time on their hands.

It's funnier than that. A Principle Officer, £40,000 quid’s worth of prison service talent, believes a con has been grabbing a sly fag in the education loo.

Rather than dish out a ticking off, the PO decides to equip himself with gloves and evidence bags and go trawling for fag ends down the bog. This is CSI on a budget.

Surreally, when the PO then presented these at the disciplinary hearing in their little baggies (he pressed a charge), he didn't claim that any of them belonged to the miscreant. 

Perhaps he was just a little attracted to the smell of pee?  Or is there just a very strong fan base of CSI amongst screws?

PS the charge was thrown out.

Kevin Went Mad

Now and then, the individual eccentricities that we develop tip into something more serious. Occasionally, one of us goes properly bonkers.

Kevin was the nick's resident artist, producing astonishing paintings with the barest of materials. His idea of entertainment was to lie in a haze of dope, making occasional forays towards his canvas. The art paid for the dope, a good portrait going for upwards of sixty quid.

His most controversial effort was a life sized mural of Princess Diana on his cell wall. She was stark naked, legs akimbo, servicing herself with a black dildo of impossible proportions. Kevin complained that it took him ages to finish as he had to keep stopping to masturbate. The screws, Royalists to a man, were livid. This may have been the first sign of his incipient loony-ness.

We were only really sure that he was mad when he took it on himself to march into the Education Department, knock on the office door and shove a copy of Fiesta Readers ' Wives in the face of the Manageress. "Is this you? Ozzie says this is you".

Ozzie knew no such thing. He was upstairs, packing his kit for a very unexpected and sudden move to Open prison. The fallout was spectacular. Ozzie found his move to Open changed into a move to Scrubs, "under investigation". The manageress was mortified. And Kevin went off to a nuthouse. The new occupant of his cell repainted the wall.