Sitting in with the prisons probation officer, she suddenly leaned aggressively across the table, stabbed her pen, and spat at me, "you pissed in Gilpin's dinner!"
I've been accused of many things during my time in prison, some large, some small. Being accused of unleashing my dong in the dinner queue and letting loose on another man's grub was one that was new.
A few days of making inquiries unravelled the prosaic reality. Gilpin was a con I disliked and it was very mutual. He stored a curry in the hotplate and, as the hours passed, the oil in the curry leached out and for all the world looked as if someone had peed on it.
Gilpin, the rat, assumed I was the deviant and grassed me up. Wing staff happily passed the info to probation, who gleefully tried to nail me. Eighteen years on, I'm still waiting for the apology.
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Some people are pretty petty aren't they?
ReplyDeleteoooh, i hate grasse's, perhaps you should have peed in it after all.But don't hold your breath, anyone who works in probation hasn't the faintest idea what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteI work in probation. I work really hard, care a lot, and have good relationships with most of my CLIENTS.
ReplyDeletePrisonerben I hope you are paroled soon and come out of prison so as to experience that the prison world is no different from the outside world. I have lost count of the number of times I have been accused of crimes I did not commit. Once I left the comfort of my parents at 12 for boarding school I became an easy target for bullies. One thing I can say about bullies is that lying is in their genes and is second nature for them. But the most weird accusations happened to me in the last 7 years here in the UK where my accusers exhausted themselves accusing me of different crimes only to find out that none of them stuck. They finally decided and concluded that I was a witch because they could not break my spirit with their lies. First they called me a prostitue and a liar and when that failed to stick, they accused me of being a witch. I am a black African woman you see, but I kick arse and the bigger my opponent's arse is the better for me because that gives me an opportunity to hit harder. I am also colour blind hence I have kicked black arses just as I have done with the pink arses of both men and women and no one will ever touch me or say boo to me. The lesson here is that the more liars and bullies accuse you of petty idiotic crimes = they envy and are frightened of you. Keep your chin up.
ReplyDeleteIt is true too, I know Florence and she kicks ass alright! She is also a black belt in karate, and a very intelligent and kind hearted woman, she is a good companion and can make a fearsom enemy, Florence, you are so cool!
ReplyDeleteBig up Flo, and keep up with your wonderful blog Ben xxx
Anon #2, Has it not occured to you, your "clients" tell you what you want to hear? Probation are the most patronizing people i have ever met. They couldn't even write down what i said properly in my file. (i had a look under the data protection act.) re my house: one said that if i loose it, it was the concequences of breaking the law. That may well be true, but that is not what the probation are there for, luck would have it that my family could help, and i was savvy enough to know what to do. But belive me Probation are USELESS, and god help anyone who would genuinely need help. from anon#1
ReplyDeleteAnon #1: Even in probation there have to be a few good probation officers, who genuinely care about their clients and want to do the best by them.
ReplyDeleteAnon #2: Taking you on face value and assuming you are as good as you say you are; how do you find working in probation? Is it as rotten as people (myself, who has not direct experience, included) tend to believe? Do you find it a frustrating environment to work in? Or does it get an unfair cop?
My gut feeling would be it is something like socialwork, which is to say; it attracts good-hearted, caring people who want to make a difference, but the constant stream of shit from every direction, the lack of support from the higher-ups and the culture lead to disillusionment and burnout and mean that, in practice, it is full of people who want to care, but have given up trying.
Being an arsehole is contagious: even the nicest person joining a culture so highly infected will find it rubs off onto them.
Yes it can be very frustrating - but also incredibly rewarding. I think you're right that there are a lot of comparisons with social workers, not least because entry requirements front line staff are piss poor (same as for prison officers)so tends to attract people who often aren't very educated...but who may indeed be incredibly kind-hearted and well-intentioned. It's interesting to compare our social work staff/prison system staff with other western European countries - social workers in countries like Denmark and Sweden tend to command a lot more public respect. For my own part, I'm Oxford educated, proper middle class : ) and I get very distressed by many of my colleagues who can't spell etc. but I did choose to do this work rather than go into the City or whatever. I think that the new system of prison 'end to end' workers that is slowly being introduced will help to improve probation outcomes- but you have to bear in mind that effective probation work requires multi-agency working - where many (if not all) the parts (e.g. housing, education, benefits, health provisions, family assistance) work to their own time scales and are all under great strain, so bringing everything together at the right time for an individual being released into the community is nigh well impossible.
ReplyDeleteOnce again Probation, as with many services are target driven. Can one person look after over one hundred people (clients?)a week ? It is not the fault of the individual officers who are generally good people, it's the targets they are set and the spineless managers who pass the shit down and support the management above.
ReplyDeleteMuch as they try to treat each person as individuals they are not allowed time and told to move on.
I know I was one for many years.
Wigarse, no doubt there are some well meaning people, doing probation work, that's not the issue though, they don't have the life experiance required. Being Oxford eductated, and middle class doesn't count for much. They discriminate against the people they try to help, for example you cannot work in probation if you have a criminal record, (like i have) but i know what it is like to go to prison, and come out the other side, and you cannot BUY that experiance, or get it from any text book. If i want advice about anything, my first port of call would always be 2 ex-cons who i am still in touch with, they are both streetwise, even though one has the writing of an 8 year old, her knowlage of the world is PRICELESS.
ReplyDeleteOther anonymous - why does the fact that I have been incredibly fortunate and had an amazingly privileged education mean that I can have no life experience, and not do a good job?? What strange logic.
ReplyDeleteThe very 'best' (whether you take that to mean educated, experienced, caring, effective, or a combination of these presumably desirable qualities) people should be working with our most vulnerable, whether as probation officers, child protection practitioners, bankers etc.
Anon #1 does raise an interesting point though. Why can't people with a criminal record work in probation?
ReplyDeleteI may not agree that having had a privileged education necessarily makes you a crap and discriminatory probation officer, but surely we should be listening to the people with the real experience as well? They must have a great deal to contribute.
Anon~2 You are missing the point, good for you if you went to Oxford, but this isn't the life experience i am talking about.
ReplyDeleteMy friends husband was a prolific drug addict for 20 years, (and criminal to pay for it) He was one of the few i have met who have turned their lives around, his story is amazing, neither you or I could have that first hand knowlege, you can't buy it, or read it in a text book.
I agree we should have the best, in every area, but we don't, the bankers have caused the economy to colapse, by throwing money at people who can't pay it back, Baby P is just one example of how the social workers get it so wrong sometimes, (to be fair, they are dammed if they do, and dammed if they don't) Sadly the probation service is USELESS, very sadly for the people that could genuinly use the help. By the way, i was able to keep my house, and on target to pay my mortgage off 5 years early, due to some exelent advice.(from a friend) If probation had their way, i'd have lost it.
Well in fact my sister battled with a heroin addiction for years, and died about 18 months ago - not that I think for a minute that one has to have first hand experience of these things to be able to do a good job. I'm really glad you were able to keep your house etc. and sorry that you had a crap experience with probation - and sorry too if I sound defensive - but it really does piss me off that people make such terrible assumptions about 'people like me'. I'm not allowed (and wouldn't anyway) make assumptions about 'people like them' - whether that's criminals, drug users or whatever.
ReplyDeleteAnon#2, My sincere condolences re your sister. My comments, are not an attack on you personally, after all i don't even know who you are. I am just speaking as i find. I just feel for the people who really need help, you know the sort i mean, who cannot read or write, have no social skills, and nothing to their name, other than a carrier bag of possessions. I really feel they are being short changed by probation. this is just my opinion.
ReplyDelete