Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Fragility of Relationships

Moving a chair can rarely lead to a major shift in relationships, at least not in the outside world.  But in prison...

Our visits room is small, maybe 15 tables at most.  It was one of the most relaxed visits rooms in the closed estate.  It allowed men and their partners, children, families, to huddle together and share that physical affection that is so sustaining and yet whose absence is the very essence of imprisonment.

Now, our chairs have been moved.  Each table - a low coffee-type, circa 1976 - has three chairs.  One now has a shabby white cover affixed to the back and must be occupied by the prisoner.  His visitors must sit, barely within reach, on the other side of the table.  What was once a sustaining experience is transformed, thoughtlessly, into a torment.

The argument made for this change is "security" - the mantra which is the first refuge of any idiot manager.  Obviously, there is a duty to prevent contraband being smuggled on visits.  But this is Shepton; fewer than 200 men and what appears to be a proficient network of informers. Any serious smuggling enterprise is inherently doomed.

There is also a duty to help us maintain our relationships, and to reduce re-offending.  Prison visits have become a disgusting, miserable experience across the whole system in recent years, with the concomitant collapse of relationships.  Has anyone in management ever considered the balance between contraband and our relationships?  I see no evidence of it.

Their mantra could easily be "stop the spliff, kill the marriage".  Job done, and they pat themselves on the back.

18 comments:

  1. Prison vists are horrible. I went to visit my best mate in prison for the first time a few weeks ago and it was one of the least pleasnat experiences of my life. I cannot understand how families could maintain any sort of relationship in the conditions created by HMPS. It's disgusting. Of course I appreciate the need to stop certain things from getting into prisons, but there needs to be a balance and HMPS has it all wrong!

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  2. Are not prison officers a more prolific and dependable conduit for contraband?

    With you, Alistair. Horrible.

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  3. As long as the bureaucracy has no vested interest outside of their own empires, collateral damage to the innocent will be of no concern to those responsible. This , I believe, is the essence behind the discovery of 'acquired callousness' of the guards, in Zimbardo's 'Stamford prison experiment'.

    Solutions, therefore, must address this moral demarcation within the 'them and us' mentality.

    Two suggestions for starters: (a) [the carrot] include the prison officers in the 'deal', to undermine the demarcation; (b) [the stick] encourage peeved visitors to sue the prison for emotional torment to themselves, to challenge the moral immunity enjoyed by the bureaucracy.

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  4. They have been whittling away at the rules on visits, since informing UNCONVICTED remand prisoners in the 1980's, - that their friends and relatives, would no longer be able to bring in food and drink, to replace the 'swill' that was (and I guess still is!) served up, in these mostly Victorian, penal dustbins on a daily basis.

    At least, I think, - we can be secure in the knowledge, that they won't EVER be able to get away with holding ALL visits 'behind glass', not without admitting that ANY drugs found - are even MORE likely to have come by way of a screw!.

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  5. Don't you understand that the fact you have visits, and some physical contact is the compromise? Don't pretend you want a compromise when you clearly just want it your own way.

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