On Power

Eleven years in...

Lying on my bed after lunch, I heard the muffled rattle of plastic approaching my cell door. There is only one thing which makes that noise - a polycarbonate riot-shield. I was about to be "extracted" from my cell... Quite why was a mystery, but one to be put aside as I contemplated my response to the imminent charge. Three screws were about to throw open the door and charge... I could fight, but there is an endless supply of staff. I chose to minimise any potential perceived threat I could be accused of presenting by sitting on my bed, arms and hands clearly away from my body and equally clearly holding no weapon.

It made no difference. The charge came with the expected whirlwind of energy, the lead - the "shield man" using his weight and the shield to smash me against the wall, wedging me as two other staff - all fully kitted in riot gear and helmets - grabbed for my arms and applied the standard wrist-locks.... It is called "pain compliance". The wrists are twisted to cause excruciating agony, wracking the body and rendering resistance impossible.

Twisted up - bent over, wrists and arms in Aikido locks, a screw holding my head to "guide" my forward motion - I was moved out onto the narrow landing. The rest of the wing was shut down, only my screams from the viciously applied wrist- locks disturbing the post-lunch silence. The landing was long and narrow, a slow painful procession towards the stairs....from the Threes landing down to the Ones, navigating an ancient and narrow Victorian iron staircase...each step jerking my wrists and head....the pain made it difficult to stand, even when bent over.

On the ground floor I was moved with  more speed towards the Strongbox tucked away in the corner. A cell within a cell, concrete, completely empty. A small window of frosted glass brick set high. Forced to the floor, full length, my face being ground into the concrete as my clothes were wordlessly ripped from me. My legs were crossed and forced up my back, allowing one screw to immobilise me by gripping my crossed ankles as the other two ran out of the door. He leant down to my face, his helmet visor obscuring his identity. Pushing my ankles hard up my back, hand squashing my face to the unmoving floor, he said, "Don't move before I'm out of the door...or we'll be back." One last swift application of his weight onto my legs and he was gone, the iron door slammed shut. Then the outer door.

As mobility slowly returned to my limbs, the pain receding, I sat cross-legged with my back against the far wall, facing the door. I stared at the spy-hole, attempting to control my breathing each time a screw outside suddenly flicked the metal cover aside to observe me. An hour, two, passed.

The wing manager opened the door. Standing outside, his hand on the lock readied for a swift exit, over his shoulder a group of other screws. A woman governor stood at next to him. I looked across the concrete from my squatting position and said, "And what the fuck was THAT all about?!" The manager stared back. "It was an attempt to persuade you to alter your attitude..."

My legs and wrists still numb, I had to use the wall to pull myself up. Standing against the back wall, naked, hurt, vulnerable, I felt my patient contempt settle into the centre of my being.

Looking him in the eye, my flat certainty clear in my voice, I said, "Really? And how do you think this is going to go for you...?"

Chancing It

Bernie was a strange man, at least in my eyes. Originating from a prosperous family background, he had killed his girlfriend and was serving Life.

His essential non-criminality was always evident, in that he refused to adhere to the strict divide between staff and prisoners. This always disturbed me slightly; it was as if he was insisting that he was somehow different, better, than the rest of us.

Bernie was a model prisoner. He smiled at staff, did exactly as he was told... it made me sick! But even his patience with the stupidity that is the prison system had limits. He had one avenue of expression.

We had a very fat, mean-spirited bastard of a Principle Officer. This PO was Bernie's release valve. Whenever Bernie walked out of his cell and saw the PO, he let out a fearsome roar, "YOU FAT BASTARD!"

This should have been a very risky proposition, worth a week or two in solitary. But Bernie had a safety-net. In a local prison with long wings, the odds were that there was always some other porky within sight. "Didn't mean you Guv, was talking to him over there..."

We were standing outside his cell one afternoon, just passing time, when the PO waddled into view. Bernie instantly reacted. "YOU FAT BASTARD!".

A fraction of a second later, Bernie, myself and the PO all realised that there was not another solitary soul in sight. Not one. As the PO swiftly bore down on Bernie, I shuffled myself out of harms way...

Professionalsim

Prison staff hate to be called "warders". No, they insist that they are called "prison officers", a professional class.

Some of the terms they have for prisoners include: scrotes, mongs, numpties, cons, creatures, beasts, animals, and my favourite, bodies.

Professionalism. Ain't it grand?

My Moral Dilemna

Obviously, I'm not a great fan of those that pay their dues to the Prison Officers Association. That's a given. It is also a given that sexually assaulting women is not one of my many personal flaws. Grassing on my peers is also off the table.

So when some mates of mine began plotting to take a female screw hostage and gang-rape her, it put me in a bind. My first thought was, “Oh, crap. This will not end well^”. Given the prison I was in at the time, it was obvious to the right-thinking that the consequences from such an outrage would be prolonged, severe, and inflicted upon the whole nick.

On this practical level, then, this plan was plain stupid. On the moral level, attacking a woman in this way was unconscionable. And yet despite this being an outrage on every possible level, grassing on these guys was not an option. I'd need to dance a bit cleverer than that to unravel this mess.

Girding my loins, I approached a Senior Officer (SO) and told him that it was imperative that he see that the ‘Screwess’ was not on the wing for the following two weeks. Without being overly specific, I had to tell him that there was some sort of plot against her in progress.

He needn't have believed me; he could have fucked me off in an instant. It is fortunate, then, that I have a reputation as being mostly 'sensible'. That is, not a fuckwit who would make this stuff up. The SO told me he would do what was needed.

This was the fancy footwork on my part. The plotters in this insanity were all on an induction landing; that is, new boys who would be dispersed to other wings within a fortnight. I only had to see that the screwess was out of reach for that amount of time, then the threat would be naturally negated by the movement of the plotters.

The scheme worked. The screwess vanished off the wing, and the would-be plotters were naturally dispersed around the nick. She was safe and I didn't grass anyone up.

For the cynical reader, you may like to know that I asked the SO not to make any mention this in my file - I did it because it was the right thing to do, not for brownie points. The SO must have done a good job, because the reports from that nick baldly stated that I had a massive problem with staff and authority. Ho-hum.