T'internet

Between now and my release I will be spending increasing amounts of time in the community, working, on home leaves, etc. This inevitably raises the issue of my directly accessing the Internet. I mean, through a legit computer rather than an illicit mobile phone! I'm steering well away from the latter.

I fiercely defend my blogging. My firm and consistent advice has always been that it is perfectly legal and since they were defeated at the beginning the Ministry of Justice have not made any attempts to interfere.

A Prison Service Instruction does now exist which prohibits our accessing - directly or indirectly - social networking sites such as Facebook. The legality of this PSI is for others to decide, but blogging is specifically not prohibited.

That said, the idea that, very soon, I could blog a post directly - "It's me, live and in real time!" - is causing management to scratch its head. Is such activity legal, when I'm out and about?

Given the positive resettlement ethos of this prison then I'm loath to start any sort of fight but this is an issue that does require resolving. Hopefully this will be done sensibly and, no matter what the outcome, until I am released the blog will continue at least in its current form.

This debate reflects the increasing freedoms that will be afforded me here. Another sign of this will be the legitimate possession of a mobile phone for use outside of the prison. Only very basic models are permitted but this will, sporadically, liberate me from the onerous shackles of the prison payphones. At last I will be able to join the rest of you and decide for myself which network provider will be bleeding me dry.

Ah, freedom!