Weapons

Recent events in a Northern prison - three screws stabbed, one infamous con slashed - remind me of the malign ingenuity of prisoners when it comes to making weapons. Or as we call them 'tools', as in 'tooled up'.

The 'standard' weapons are tins of tuna in a sock - a weighty bludgeoning tool - and a razor blade melted into the handle of a toothbrush.

Even these reveal shifts in the culture of prison over the years. The standard tool for decades was a PP9 battery in a sock, a fearsome item that could stun you quickly. But the introduction of electricity and the resulting unavailability of such large batteries has seen a shift to another ubiquitous item, tins of tuna.

Of course, there isn't much that can't be turned into a weapon in extremis. If it is metal, glass or hard plastic then it can be heated, beaten or shaped into a stabbing or cutting implement. Just about my person as I write there are numerous potential weapons. The arms of my specs can be used to stab; the lenses can be broken to slice; the lighter in my pocket has a metal rim, usually used as an all-purpose screwdriver but could be sharpened to cut; and my tobacco tin, made of two pieces of steel, can conceivably be sharpened.

Depending on how desperate the individual, how extreme the circumstances, and how malign the imagination then there is little that can't be turned into a weapon.
This has always taxed the brains of my keepers and, in particular, the decrepit neuron that powers the Prison Officers Association. In the recent attack oop North, one of their members lost the use of his arm. The assault seemed to have been carried out with a broken bottle, possibly of the sauce variety.

Their response was their default, thoughtless one - to remove all glass objects from the list of items we may buy. Coffee and sauces are the main items. They also demanded that the prison be locked-down for days whilst they searched for other 'weapons' and then made a vote of No Confidence in the Governor.

It may surprise some people that we have access to the likes of glass coffee jars and bottles of HP. Why, I wonder? Is it assumed that prisoners are a seething mass of animal urges, that the only reason that we are not attacking staff and each other in a, perpetual bloodbath is for want of a weapon of any kind?

It may disappoint those raised on a diet of American prison movies, but it just isn't like that. Oddly enough, most of us potter through the days un-frustrated at our inability to slaughter the neighbours.

The POA claim an expertise amongst their members, borne out of their daily contact with prisoners. Alas, their view of us is as clouded as that of the most rabid tabloid newspaper. They really don't have a clue, preferring to portray us as barely restrained animals. And yet, in this place, where most of my peers are murderers, there may be just one single punch-up a year.

Take away the glass jars, then. Will that make a whit's worth of difference? Of course not. The next attack on staff would then come from a razor blade. So take away the razors? Then the tinned goods. Then any bludgeons, like furniture, chairs, tables...

People don't attack each other because they have a handy weapon. The weapon is merely their means to fulfil some chosen end. The question is, why choose to attack staff in such a way?

I recall the screws down the Block in Dartmoor taking it upon themselves to ensure that we had nothing that could remotely be used as a weapon. No beds, no chair, nothing metal at all. Why such extremism? Because they were bloodily and deliberately brutal and it's far safer to punch a con in the mouth when you have lots of other screws with you - and when you know the con has no weapons to even the score.