Jail-The Truth about Prison

I have spent half my life in and out prison, and over the years I have come to realise, that rehabilitation is just a word that the prison system uses. It introduces another psychological programme which is marginally changed from those which came before. This allows another way for the prison to get extra cash, for each bum on the seats completing the programme. The duplication in most programmes and courses, means that in application, once you have done one course, the learning becomes limited. No matter how many new prisons the Home Secretaries build, if there is no re-form, nothing will change.

Prison has become very lucrative with huge contracts being completed by below minimum wage workers (Prisoners). They are the product that is caught in the circle of misery. Crime has a huge impact on society and criminals must take some responsibility for their actions.

But if society and the criminal justice system fail to adapt the current way of dealing with prisoners, without any changes in rehabilitation, the 80’s riots will soon be happening again and is already there in some prisons. It is not working.

I can see prisons heading to a total meltdown, within 5-10 years, at present they have lost control, the increase of assaults on staff is so bad that they don’t want to come to work or are on sick leave. New officers do not have the life skills to manage in an environment of career criminals, putting themselves and other staff members and inmates at risk.

Drugs and phones have become a huge concern in prison and are at epidemic proportions. The prison system must take some of the responsibility for this, they put a wide variety of criminals in a warehouse and call it a prison, with no real purposeful activity, locked in a 6 by 10 box for 23 hours a day.

With all that time to think of ways to commit more crime, prison is the university of crime for criminals. Hillary Clinton said, “you can’t expect to keep snakes in your backyard and not get bitten”. What the prison system fails to accept, is that itis running the university of crime.

A person comes to prison for a relatively small offence, maybeserving6-12 months for a driving offence, theft or shoplifting, they are then exposed to street criminals, armed robbers, burglars, drug dealers, kidnapers, murderers, the list goes on. In that 6-12 months, that person’s criminal mind has been opened to crimes that they may have never considered before. They have been schooled by their peers to the intricate workings of new criminal skills. This is also true in young offender establishments. So, by the time the youths become young men, their core beliefs are ingrained and a lot harder to change, I know this to be true about myself, and 90% of the 100 thousand in custody in England and Wales.

Reform needs to start by the Government investing more money into the prison system, better paid officers with better pensions, encouraging officers to make it a career, instead of a stop gap. Better training for officers, placing younger officers (under25)in YO’s too, alongside more senior officers whilst developing their life skills.

Officers over 25 with adult prisoners, working with their senior officers, this will help reduce young officers being groomed by prisoners. For example, I was in a prison where an officer who worked there, if he was arrested for a crime, would not be old enough to be sent to that prison (over 25s).

It sets a tone for them to be bullied. For the older prisoner, it can be a bit disrespectful having someone who has no real-life skills telling someone old enough be their father or mother what to do.

This reform also needs to be agreed across all political parties, locked in for a set amount of years. Agreeing that no matter which party comes into power they will continue what was agreed and finish the work they started, until the set time period has elapsed.

The reason for this is to put policies in place and see them through. Frequent changes of Prison Minister and Home Secretary personnel means that each time they change the policy of the previous Home Secretary, wanting to stamp their own ideas on the job but rarely moving forward. This is unfair on both staff and inmates alike, having to dance to a different tune every year or two, especially as it takes that long for new policies to start to work or show long-term effects. When a policy benefits the prison system, it is moved through swiftly whereas those that benefit the prisoners are dragged through at a snail’s pace, losing its value or scrapped because of lack of effort by the officers.

Changes need to start at pre-sentence reports. When the probation service finds out what the offender would like to do as a career, if given the opportunity to learn a trade, the judge can then tie the offenders sentence to his/her chosen trade, to be completed in the custodial part of the sentence. If not completed, the offender would default, losing time off their licence. The need to go home will be the motivator to get the offender out of bed to their place of training. This training should run alongside Maths and English to Level 2. For this to work the prison system needs to change its view on big contracts for cheap labour, that only benefit the prison and not the prisoners. It will also have to change the workings of B and C category training prisons, to make them specialist prisons, meeting the requirements of different trade training for prisoners.

Change The government needs to work with large corporations such as the AA for mechanics, British Gas for plumbers, electricians, HGV drivers etc, basic trade skills. There should be a subsidy to encourage these companies to come into prisons and train prisoners to the level needed to be employed by these same companies. This not only gives the offender valuable skills to use in the labour market but also gives them a job opportunity immediately after leaving prison. This helps to promote self-worth and reduce the inclination to reoffend, as days are purposefully filled and a chance to earn a wage, locked in for a year long contract with the company, giving that company a chance to benefit from the skills imparted to the offender.

The closest I have seen this idea work is in HMP Wands worth with the Click programme, training chefs who then go on to work in restaurants. |This must be better than locking offenders in their cells for 23 hours a day, thinking out of sight, out of mind and hoping the problems will go away on their own. Not a chance! All the prison is doing is warehousing the problem, giving offenders the chance to get more negatively informed in the university of crime and criminals. Thus, increasing the circle of young men becoming better informed, more daring, less fearful of the consequences and with no hope that they could be or do something better than they are. I know this because I used to be that young man and I am still working hard to not be him anymore. I am now 50 and recognise the time for a change in me and the way the system deals with people like me, offenders.

There also needs to be a change which comes from the general public, as they are a part of the problem by having the view that punishment means being locked behind bars for 23 hours a day, chain gang breaking bones kind of punishment. This only creates a “wild animal” full of hate, anger and frustration who will become more of a problem to the public and be an additional drain on the system funded by the tax payer. This can lead to a distorted view that society owes them for the time spent in prison, a quite common view in offenders. Conversely, the public could be part of the reform by not just sitting by and letting the media tell them what prison is like. They could come up with ideas, offering contracts, asking MP’s to push for more to be done about prison reform, not just sat at home pointing the finger, thinking that someone else will stop crime and criminals.

Criminality has existed since the beginning of time and will continue for as long as this world has an uneven distribution of wealth. The disparity between the have and have nots, will create the appetite for crime and criminals, both legal and illegal. The prison system sees real reform as giving in. For all the years I have been in prison, they only change policy if it works for them, not what works best. Suggestions from offenders are mostly dismissed as bad ideas because either the officers see it as more work and start quoting POA guide lines, and then the governors back down. Offenders are deemed not to know what they are talking about.

Reform will not, and cannot happen from the outside view only, i.e. the Prison Secretary, who walks around a prison once with an entourage of governors, speaks to a selected few and think they then understand the real issues. Policy makers think they know best without the informed understanding of the workings in a prison. This is not their background as a public servant.

Reform needs to be worked on by current governors, and or ex-governors with a dedicated reform council made up of officers and offenders, to give a balanced view of reform that works for all. The result of this is then relayed back to the Home Secretary for a decision to be made across governments. As previously stated, reform must be agreed by all parties in order to maintain continuity and any future changes within the agreed duration must also be unanimously agreed by all involved.

Adrian McCrae.