Throffer

Not a typo but a deadly piece of prison terminology. It combines "threat" and "offer".

Much of what is required of us to "address our offending behaviour" (a hideous term) is voluntary. There are psychological courses intended to help us control our anger, think more clearly and reign in our deviant urges.

They are wholly voluntary. But... if you don't do them then you won't be released. This is the essence of a "throffer".

The poor sods most sharply hit by this are the innocent. Without admitting their guilt, they rarely get released because they won't do the psych courses.

Legally, they don't have to admit guilt to gain release but readers will appreciate by now that law and practice are only occasionally overlapping.

These innocent people exist in a twilight world governed by throffers. "Admit your guilt and we will let you go... do the courses, we will let you go...you don't have to do these things, of course, but if you don't..."

Throffer. Add it to your spellchecker dictionary. And file it next to "Kafka".

Answers 2

Gaina-
If you could make one major change to the criminal justice system
for (a) Adult and (b) Juvenile offenders, what would they be?

I would throw out criminal justice and institute restorative justice. Responding to social harm by inflicting more harm is the dumbest artefact of Western civilisation. It is the equivalent of two men punching each other in the face, to see who gives in first. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

JackP-
To what extent does prison life become 'normal' over time- as in, do people just in find it very difficult to cope, and is there a risk that people at the other end of the scale (such as yourself) become institutionalised and may find problems dealing with outside life again?

We must differentiate between two concepts. There is 'prisonisation', where one picks up and learns the local culture and mores. Then there is 'institutionalisation’, which is a fairly vague concept which usually implies a loss of skills, intellect or ability.

Prisonisation is the process new arrivals undergo. This is like landing in a foreign country; initially slightly confusing, but the local knowledge allowing one to function is picked up rapidly. Some people do find it hard to cope because the change is unremitting and unavoidable.

You can get used to prison, as you can get used to any set of difficult circumstances. Human beings are incredibly adaptable. But it is always deeply abnormal. It is also not unusual for it to become less easy to cope with as time passes. I recall having terrible difficulty at the start of my second decade, leading me to try and kill myself through an extended hunger strike (43 days). These periods tend to afflict me every ten years or so. I seem to survive; some lifers don't.

Institutionalisation is largely a myth based on flawed experiments made on rats, exploring the concept of ‘learned helplessness'. I have little time for it. That isn't to say that the transition from prison to freedom is devoid of difficulty.
This isn't because we lose our abilities during the sentence but rather is a function of self-belief. Imprisonment is a perpetual exercise in being patronized, dis-empowered and de-skilled. If you persistently tell people that they are inadequate, some will begin to believe it. Those are the ones who worry about freedom, begin to believe that they cannot cope, and it a false concern.

I do find discussions around institutionalisation as interesting as they are frustrating. Everybody seems to mean something different by it, and if I try to pin them down on quite what, exactly, is meant to be difficult about daily life then the answers become evasive. Six billion people bumble through daily life okay, how hard can it be? What do you think I may have problems with?

People forget (or don't realise) that prisons are a little society and encompasses all the features of the wider world, if somewhat warped. There is a social structure, neighbour disputes, work, a complex economy… all we seem to lack is decent access to technology!

2. Also, what is the mood like? Do people try their best to get on with it, or is there a certain amount of gloom and resentment hanging around all of the time?

It's a truism that if you put more than two lifers in a room, there will be an outbreak of moaning. I think that's quite optimistic…

We do try to get on with it, trying to create and sustain an existence of sorts within which we can find some meaning. We also complain like hell about every aspect of our lives. It is more bitterness than gloom, and it lurks just beneath the surface.

As is common in all difficult situations, humour is a great defence against being overwhelmed. Prison humour is appalling, way beyond the pale of normal people and though I wish I could, I dare not share any of it with you! We make Frankie Boyle look like Norman Wisdom.

3. Are there any groups of people (such as chronic re-offenders) who the system is unable to deal with? If so, how would you protect the public from these people?

Depends what you mean by "deal with'. The system can physically contain and control any individual within its grasp. Whether it can 'deal' with making a positive difference is another issue.

The prison system can only do what society funds and mandates. There are those who are particularly difficult, in that present systems seem unable to change them for the better. This doesn't mean that other methods and systems wouldn't work, only that they are presently neglected due to political and social constraints.
There are those I have met, even some I live with now, who I would hesitate to release. But I refuse to accept that there are many of them who cannot change.
Prison is stuffed full of chronic re-offenders. But are they really socially dangerous, or are they more of a nuisance? They are often drug users, which highlights an old complaint that the prison system is asked to deal with sociomedical problems because no one else wants to deal with them. Free heroin would slash the crime rate.

Perhaps you refer to the likes of serial killers? This is a moot point, as none have ever been released yet. Can they be changed? No one knows, no one has tried. Only those who have never been caught, yet have stopped killing know the answer and they are keeping their mouths shut.

Or maybe you mean serial rapists or paedophiles? The prison service claims some success with its Sex Offender Treatment Programme. I think their research is shoddy and dishonest. That said, the re-offending rates for sex offenders is one of the lowest (murderers being lowest of all).

In a real sense I echo the view of John McVicar. Prison doesn't reform. It is up to the individual to decide to change. I suppose the best prison can ever do is create an environment conducive to that change and which supports it. Such a pity it never has.

4. What time is it?

As I write, it's 8:55 pm and we have just been locked up for the night. I'm settling down trying to listen to Jack Johnson and read a paper but the damn bell ringers in the church opposite are really going for it.

How to Serve 30 Years

A few people have wondered how it is I have served thirty years; and why I am 20 years past my tariff.

Let's put aside the obvious concern - that I am some rabid, unstable creature that has to be fed at the end of a long stick. I'm remarkably normal, given the givens. My dossier is remarkably free of violence, considering the violent environment I have grown up in.

The explanation for my continued detention is far more subtle and complicated. It would help at this point to understand that there is a legal test for releasing Lifers, the 'Benson - Bradley test'. The Parole Board has to be satisfied that I pose 'no more than a minimal risk to life or limb^’. However, how that assessment is made is a process of alchemy.

But back to the beginning. It was a given that I would serve 10 years, regardless of anything I did. That period was my tariff -the period to be served for retribution and deterrence. It is the next 20 years that need some explaining - and I can only give you my version.

In my eighth year I had a strange conversation with the Lifer Governor. Strange, because he told me things and this was a period where we were told nothing. Until the early 1990's, we were not allowed to read staff reports on us, and we were not shown the content of Parole answers. We couldn't challenge anything said about us, and we were never told what we needed to do in order to gain release. Serving a life sentence then was an exercise in navigating a maze in the dark.

This Governor shed some light on my situation, reading out my 'career plan'. Yup, life sentences are regarded as being a career. Who knew? My career plan projected that I would serve some 16 years. Such was the secrecy and arrogance of the Home Office in those days that adding a few years to my sentence was neither here nor there.

By coincidence, it was at my 15 year mark that the Parole Board began recommending that I be moved to open prison, prior to being released. And that was the point when Home Secretaries began ignoring those recommendations. That first time was a strange moment, having a real prospect of release within sight. The Home Office refused to send me to open, citing my occasional bouts of depression as their reason.

I reacted badly. Five years over tariff, having done enough to please the Parole Board, and some politician was keeping me in prison on a pathetic reason. So I attempted what we call ^‘self-release’ - an escape. It was more to signal my discontent that a genuine run for Rio, and saw me embedded in a compost heap. A story for another day.

Four times the Parole Board recommended I be moved to open prison. Four times a politician refused, on the flimsiest of excuses - a spliff here, an argument there. That was 10 years accounted for and wasted. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that I am a 'difficult prisoner^’, it is equally accepted that I am not a violent one. My "issues' relate to resisting abuses of authority and having a big mouth. It is not for me, then, to explain away that wasted decade, it is for the Minister.

On their fifth attempt, the Parole Board did get me to open. I'd served 25 years at this point. If their first recommendation hadn't been nobbled by the Minister, I would have been released around the 17 year mark. Ho-hum.

My time in open lasted a year, and then I was returned to closed (this prison). Having skipped over the details of the first 26 years, it is from this point on that detail would help you to understand the web that enmeshes Lifers.

I arrived at Open full of positive hopes, determined to put in place the bedrock for my future on release. I had a Plan. Not just a plan, but one with a capital P. My university was waiting to accept me to begin my PhD; another university was willing to accept me to undertake voluntary work in their library; my home leave address was a sitting MP; and I was making contacts with the aim of gaining training in mediation.

Not a bad plan, considering that 50% of Lifers in the community are unemployed. It covered at least two prospective avenues for employment, social support and housing - all the key elements in a stable life. When I presented this to the relevant manager at open, he looked down the boardroom table and dismissed it: "we don't care." That's when I knew I was in trouble.

Management vacillated back and forth as I shuttled between offices, attempting to negotiate a sensible way forward. All I wanted was a chance. Out of sheer frustration, I began to refuse to undertake some 'voluntary' activities, hoping to persuade managers to note my distress.

It partly worked. Eleven months after arriving, a lifer manager finally agreed to 'consider' my proposals, particularly the PhD. This positive move was instantly undermined by his insistence that I “jot the research proposal on the back of an envelope”. I tried to explain that research proposals are a tad more complex than that, but he just couldn't appreciate my point. Stalemate.

Two weeks later I was 'kidnapped' and dumped in my current location. The official reason was that I 'failed to comply with the regime'. It wasn't suggested I posed a risk, or was intending to abscond; merely attempting to fight my own corner to build a life on release was a sufficient crime. I'm far from alone - about half this prison are rejects from that open prison.

As is the procedure, I was then referred back to the Parole Board to consider whether I should return to open. It took a year to arrange this. None of the reports from staff suggested I posed a risk or that I was unsuitable to return to open prison. In the normal course of events, I would have been given an earful for being 'difficult^’ and sent on my way. Alas, this hearing before the Parole Board took place just after the Anthony Rice scandal. Rice was a lifer who had been released, only to commit further very serious offences. The report into these events condemned all involved, including the Parole Board, for their poor decision making. I walked into a hearing just as the Board had adopted their most conservative outlook in a generation.

Bear in mind that the Board had consistently recommended I move to open for a decade; and that all that had changed was my falling out with managers. I was stunned, then, to receive a 6 page parole answer that verged on the abusive, and which concluded that I may be a psychopath. Either this Board was more perceptive than anybody else who had dealt with me in the previous 27 years, or they were paralysed by the Rice case and were desperate not to take any chance that may backfire. In the 18 months following Rice, the percentage of lifers sent to open collapsed. The Lifers hadn't changed; all that was different was the attitude of the Board.

Nonetheless, I was stuffed, stranded back in closed conditions for a raft of psychological assessments. The date for my next Parole Board hearing was set at 18 months ahead. This prison assured me that it had the resources to conduct the assessments needed to address the psychopath issue.

They lied. They had no money for the assessments and I had to arrange them through my solicitor. My parole hearing date slid back another year because of this.

Last May, my Parole Board sat again. They accepted that, whilst being a generally arrogant git, I wasn't a psychopath nor was it claimed that I pose a risk of reoffending. That I'm a pain in the arse is a given, always ready to argue the toss. But no one argues this makes me a risk, a point this Board made in their latest answer - They slapped down the opinion of the Ministry of Justice to that effect: "The panel did not lightly disregard the opinion of the Secretary of State. However, they concluded that [his] view persisted in the same error of equating an uncooperative and challenging attitude with the future risk of violent offending..."

To return to where I began, then, with the legal test for release: that I pose no more than a minimal risk to life or limb. Being irritating doesn't - shouldn't - come into the mix. Why, then, didn't that Parole Board order my release instead of recommending I return to Open? In their own words:

"In summary, having balanced your interests in sentence progression against the interests of public protection, the panel was satisfied that sufficient evidence exists that your risk of violent offending has been reduced to a level such it is safely manageable in open prison conditions. The panel did not consider that sufficient evidence of risk reduction exists to enable them to make a direction that you be released; there is a necessity, in the panel's view (in the interests of public protection), for there to be a period of testing and gradual reintegration into the community before release."

Untangle that tortured English and jargon and it boils down to the fact that they want me to spend a period in Open prison in order to see if I've been cabbaged by all the years they have kept me inside. We agree to disagree on that one.

The Ministry of Justice accepted this recommendation and set the date for my next Parole Board hearing as next summer, after 12 months in Open. That would have seen me released...

Alas, my life never goes that easily. No sooner had the Ministry spoken than I was confronted with fresh misdemeanours - they allege that two years ago, I had a relationship with one of the civilian staff, and that repossessed a mobile phone for a brief period. And so the Ministry have suspended my move to Open, and referred me back to the Parole Board for their advice as to whether I should still be progressed.

What do you think?

Open Prisons

The very words comprise an oxymoron in the eyes of the masses. "Open. Prison." It is a juxtaposition of lexicography that lends itself to a Peter Kay sketch, replacing "Garlic. Bread".

Like much else in the prison system, open prisons did not flow from some profound analysis but are an accident of history. A rising post-war crime rate co-existed with defunct military camps. The problem inevitably found the solution.

Most prisoners never see an open nick. Only two groups have a fighting chance of being dropped into these bucolic hellholes. The first and largest group are those serving very short sentences, preferably for non-violent and non-sexual crimes. The stereotype of open nicks being populated by ex-coppers and dodgy accountants has some truth to it. These people are dropped in Open because Closed prisons are expensive and unnecessarily secure.

The second group is the one that causes the local population to twitch and the tabloids to salivate - those coming to the end of very long or life sentences.

For lifers and long-termers, Open is a period of 're-socialisation' and 'testing^’ after spending many years in closed conditions. On the face of it, a laudable enterprise, surely? Though the media presentation is one of murderers and rapists being free to escape and commit mayhem on the locals.

This is based on the strange idea that we commit crime just because we can. I could have killed a dozen people today, but guess what - I didn't. We are not insane; people commit crimes for a reason, even if that reason is essentially a blown mental fuse. That the local villagers do not have a fence between them and us is not exactly a genuine issue of note.

The alternative is to keep all prisoners in secure conditions - a few more hundred million quid’s worth of your taxes - and that long termers are disgorged straight from the deepest dungeons right onto your doorstep as their sentence ends.