Risk to life or limb

This is the crux of a lifer's detention once the tariff has expired. On the face of it, it is not unreasonable to keep in prison a person who has killed another until it can be shown that he does not pose a risk to life and limb.

But that bare statement conceals a morass of complexity. In my own case, for example, it is not actually claimed that I pose a positive risk to life and limb. It never has been, in that my crime took place in unique, unrepeatable circumstances.

Rather, it was the view of the Parole Board at the last hearing that I could only demonstrate that I did not pose a risk by being in an Open prison without incident. In essence, the claim is that I will find it so difficult to move back into society that I will blow some mental fuse and go running through the streets wielding am axe.

Note that this argument is not rooted in my original crime, nor does it rest upon any claim that 1 am inherently prone to violence. Rather, it is an assertion that society is so difficult to deal with that I will need to be "tested" - in the twisted way that Open prisons function - to see if society and myself are on a course for a violent collision.

You will appreciate that I feel that this is an utterly pathetic, incoherent reason for keeping me detained. It also reveals a truly frightening lack of understanding of the nature of murder on the part of the Parole Board.

Murderers can be viewed in one of two ways. Either they are individuals who are inherently prone to violence, bearers of a profound psychological flaw that erupts sporadically; Or, they are individuals who are overwhelmed in very specific emotionally or psychologically charged situations.

As the rate for murderers committing second homicides in around 1 to 2%, then I contend that the latter is the correct view. Murderers are not inherently violently flawed people, but rather individuals who react homicidally to specific circumstances - and these circumstances rarely occur more than once in their lives.

If this is indeed correct - and I see no evidence otherwise - then to suggest that I may react violently to the stresses of daily social life is absurd. Do you react violently to daily frustrations? No. Neither do I. And whilst the particular stresses of life out there are not precisely replicated in prison life, prison life is incredibly stressful. This is why, for example, our suicide rate is so high. And yet, in the face of institutionalised degradations and provocations, I have shown no inclination to violent behaviour.

Why, then, should I not deal with the issues posed by daily life in precisely the same way as you? I didn't "fail" life, I "failed" a specific, unrepeatable situation. To keep me in prison longer is to reveal an incoherence at the heart of the release process.