Semi-Detached

Closed prisons have a psychological as well as real weight to them. Exemplified in steel and concrete, a more subtle though controlling effect is the perpetual necessity to engage with the institution. From everything from toilet paper to food, there is a panoply of daily events which demand that we are dependent upon staff. In this way we are deeply and irretrievably enmeshed by the prison.

Open is different. Or rather, this one is. Not all open prisons are the same. Here we are disengaged, self motivating and self actuating, engaging with the institution in a far less frequent manner. There is a very real sense that we are merely "passing through", whereas in closed prisons there may be a sense of "home" - a permanent settlement.

And so in closed prison, a daily conflict or challenge made to the institution and its practices may be a worthwhile effort. Any changes that result directly benefit the campaigner and his daily life. In open, the sense of being a very temporary visitor reduces the urge to challenge, it brings into question the whole point of campaigning.

The Tannoy is My Shepherd...

Closed prisons move to the rhythm of the Keys, our daily lives and movement being guided by how, when and where various doors and gates are being locked and unlocked. This Open prison lives without that control. We just have a Tannoy system, enabling staff in various departments to summon Joe Bloggs from wherever he may be.

In the absence of locked doors and staff, the rhythm of the day and our routine is self imposed. We know - or quickly discover - when and where we should be during working hours. We know when the dining hall opens, when the library is ready, where the visits room is.

And rather than being dependent upon staff to enable the journey to and from, we make our own way around the institution. The official activities such as work and meals provide a framework of sorts but for the rest of the time we can appear or disappear around the place pretty much at will.

This is why, in the initial week or so, it is a boring place. Before a coterie of new comrades or old friends are discovered, until the sources of ease about the place are unveiled, then activity is rendered random, aimless and unsatisfying. Once a job has been found or allocated, though, then it feels as if one is being integrated into the structure here.

Some find Open quite an easy place. Some just don't. The trite may sit in smug judgement and throw around that debased word, institutionalisation, as an explanation for this but they would be wrong. There are those - short termers as well as long - who prefer a more structured life, and that is how they arrange their affairs in the outside world as well. Until they can engage with some activity here, they feel adrift and uncomfortable.

Then there are those who arrive and fail to shake off the mentality which enabled their survival through many years in Closed prisons. This is illustrated most clearly by their interactions with the institution, the run-ins with staff, the complaints they make. Every prison (every human institution!) is riddled with flaws, shot through with issues where improvement should be a necessity. Open prisons are just as liable to these weaknesses as are closed prisons, though the specific issues may be different.

Yet to engage with the nick on that level is to miss the point somehow. Here we must give serious time and effort to looking forward, to gaining release and beginning to rebuild our lives. To be drawn in to arguments with staff over the minutiae of prison life may be a useful strategy in Closed prisons but in Open it is to fall into a trap of looking backwards rather than forwards. And that carries the risk of tripping over your own feet.

Week 1 Part 4

My ambitions for the magazine seemed to chime with the Education Depts and I believe that they could appreciate how I saw developing the mag into a positive force and a small nexus of creativity within the prison - and as a channel with which to engage the outside community.

The words, "You're hired!" had only mjust faded when the phrase, "ah, but, ummm..." raised its all too familiar head. The job of editing the magazine is an "orderlies" position, and such jobs cannot be taken by men who have been in this prison for less than two weeks. Ability, necessity, enthusiasm, experience...all count for nothing in the face of "local policy". Neither does plain common sense.

And so at the end of my week of job hunting I fell into the clutches of the Labour Board. And they have ordained that the sum of talents and aspirations are best met by standing in the rear of the carpentry workshop, sandpapering bits of prison furniture.

I'm really, really, trying to stay positive...


Ed's Footnote: since writing this post Ben has actually started working on the prison magazine.

Week 1, Part 3

Open prisons have a fondness for work that borders on fetishism. With this in mind the wise use all their spare time during the induction week scuttling around the nick trying to find a job. If this fails then the dreaded Labour Board makes the decision.

Given my various ailments, coupled with the failure to shove me in front of the GP within 2 weeks, I was handicapped in this unseemly scrabble for employment. Provisionally graded "Labour 2" (lightish duties) I found my options seriously limited. Obviously all the better jobs were filled long ago.

Relying on my more natural abilities, I began applying for jobs more likely to use my potential. The Library, the advice centre, induction, and - thanks to a quiet tipoff - the Editorship of the prison magazine.

The only door that was graced with a welcome mat was that of the Education Department; a nice change from how Education has treated me in recent years. Keen to replace the Editor who was soon to leave, and being longtime readers of my output, they were very enthusiastic at my appearance...

Week 1, Part 2

There are a range of ways in which to enter a prison, styles of adaptation, states of mind, which can profoundly effect

the way that time flows in that prison.

Although I was rather highjacked and dumped 3 hours away from my home area, given that my next Parole Board sits in a mere 5 months, I squashed every negative or arsey thought and determined to enter Sudbury with a positive outlook.

Through benign Fate, I've fallen in with a helpful and thoroughly decent bunch of people. They are full of advice, questions and - in one case - an endless supply of mischievous lies. In this respect, I've landed on my feet.

I also rolled into a double cell... The torments of this situation are vastly unappreciated by the uninitiated and it serves to ratchet up my baseline stress hugely. I am trying to write this to the accompanyment of Coronation Street and Emmerdale. Oh, the horrors! My cellmate wasn't even born when I came to prison.

Being ninth on the list for a single cell, this stress could gnaw away at me for some time.

Open Prison - The First Week Part 1

The uninitiated often assume, if unthinkingly, that a move to Open prison would include something of a culture shock.

After all, there are few locked doors, no barred windows, no security fence...oh, the freedom!

I must disappoint you. Liberty is the natural, default, state and it is confinement which provides the culture shock. And never forget that Open prison remains prison. The lack of bars and fences only serves to highlight the essence of modern incarceration - it is based upon bureaucracy and managerialism. These things remain, perhaps exist in an even stronger form, in Open prison.

Open prison is also mindbendingly bloody boring. Being unlocked all of the time forces us to live an extremely long day, far removed from the fragmented days in Closed prison where we psychologically adpat to bang-up via the medium of sleep or bad TV. With seemingly little to do in these long days, boredom quickly sets in.

As culture shock goes, the psychological effects of moving to Open are no greater than being moved between two Closed prisons. Each has differences and nuances, but the dimension of physical liberty is not hugely significant.

Trust

Prison life is littered with small indicators of our status, particularly how far we are trusted - or not.

Does a screw step aside on the stairs to ensure that you aren't walking behind him? When he's talking to you, does he look over both your shoulder and his own? In these and other small ways our untrustworthy status is signalled, often to my frustration.

Open prison is the epitome of this. Some are festooned with CCTV cameras, even on the landings.  In others, the windows in the rooms don't open more than a few inches, assuming we'd be heading for the horizon if clambering out was made too easy. Not that a pane of glass hindered an escapologist but as a signal of trust, it sugg­ests that management focus more on "prison" than on "open".

Here, my window opens wide. So wide that I have to use caution not to fall out when I pull it shut. If we wanted to recreate the Greatest Hits of Colditz, circumnavigating a pane of glass wouldn't be on the list of perilous obstacles. I have a key to both my door and the one at the end of the landing. There is no perimeter fence of any significance - the one that does exist is said to be there to deter travellers from sneaking in and joining the dinner queue.

These are small things, but they signify acts of faith on the part of our keepers. Some, a tiny minority, break with that faith and they duly pay the price.

For me, these are significant signs that I am being invested with a measure of sense, that doesn't happen too often in prison.

Third Time Lucky?

From the Ed:

Ben was told yesterday that he is to be transferred to an open prison this coming Wednesday.

Let's hope he actually makes it this time...

Endless Struggle

The official criteria for priority to move to Open Prison is whether one is over tariff, and how long one has been waiting for the move.

As I'm 21 years over tariff and have now been waiting a full year for the transfer, I'd like to think that I've been put near the top of the list.

Hmmm...

A Future

Having begun the process of regaining my equilibrium after my recent mental implosion, the news that I am (again) to journey off to open prison is a well-timed boost.

In truth, I shared management's view that the mobile phone affair would see the Ministry of Justice refer me back to the parole board, at a cost to me of a year or more.  I also thought that this would have been a pretty vindictive move.  After all, whatever my use of a phone says, it is hardly an indicator that I pose a "risk to life and limb".

Attempting to divine the motives behind Ministry decisions is nearly always a futile effort.  The Ministry moves with biblical levels of mysteriousness.  Yet I can't resist the urge to ponder this development.  Has someone in the MoJ decided to give me a chance of a future life? Are they giving me a rope and hoping I hang myself? Perhaps this is the Ministry making an effort to appear fair in the light of the police investigations into possible political interference with my last parole hearing? All of these are possible, and more; but we will never know.

Let's just accept the decision and try to use it.  Once I am physically moved to open prison (regular readers will know that I have been waiting for almost a year) then I should be released within some 12 months.  Along the way I will face significant challenges.  Not the ones some of you expect - the outside world - but rather the very low levels of expectations and the extremely limited opportunities offered in open prisons.  As I always chafe when being treated like a halfwit, it will fall to me to persuade managers to allow me to explore avenues to develop my future opportunities.

Staring at the walls here in a Block within a closed prison, the idea of being "free" in a year or so can seem unreal.  After all, tomorrow has all the hallmarks of being a seamless continuation of the last 31 years.  But I am cautious to avoid this trap.  Even though open prison is still prison, time there holds unique challenges and experiences and to become lazy, to take one's eye off the goal of release, is to court disaster.  That is not a mistake I intend to make.

As a year can pass by very quickly, I must look past open prison and give careful thought to my post-prison future.  Decisions need to be made.  Do I retire from prison politics and quietly sidle off into obscurity? Do I attempt to earn a living as a media tart, or as a writer-commentator? Resume my PhD and hope for some niche research position?  There are so many potential paths into the future, so many questions.

And I'm not going to be shy about asking you guys for ideas or about opportunities.  The cynical amongst you can view it as an experiment in rehabilitation.

The next year promises to be the most interesting that I have had for, oh, about 31 years...

Goodish News

My juddering progress to the Big Wide World has taken a move in the right direction.

Having been busted over a mobile phone a few months ago, my move to open prison went into limbo whilst the Ministry pondered. And pondered.  And pondered. They have finally decided not refer me back to the Parole Board for a bit of a spanking, and that I remain fit for open prison.

This was a surprise, as all involved were assuming that the Ministry were going to take any opportunity to stiff me.  This then, may indicate a shift in how I am perceived, some final recognition that while I may be a little difficult I am largely benign.

There is a hitch though. I still haven't been moved to open prison and no-one seems in any hurry to phone for the taxi.  This looks as if it may, alas, lead to my having to take legal action to get from here - Cat C  - to there - Cat D.

Let's hope sense and expediency prevail.

Tired

Somehow, I am very tired of all of this.  I'm tired of fighting my depression, I'm tired of waking up each day to another string of meaningless and empty hours, days, maybe years.  Tired of being frustrated, of having to battle for every little thing, trying to find something positive. And tired of being scared of my cancer.

I'm just...tired of it all.

Everything good that was happening has gone; my studies and career, writing, health - all gone.  And maybe the Cat D too.

I'm tired.

May Day

Today is the first of May.  Ben's release hearing is set for May 2012, but he is expected to complete a minimum of 12 months in open prison first. He is still in HMP Shepton Mallet.  Lord David Ramsbotham wrote to Crispin Blunt about Ben's failed move to open prison and got an apology back.  Lord Ramsbotham forwarded this letter to me and I sent it in to Ben.  Crispin Blunt apologised for the "distress" caused by the "administrative error" and promised that Ben is top of the waiting list to move.  An apology is all well and good, but 8 weeks down the line and Ben is still in Shepton.

In an e-mail last week, Lord Ramsbotham told me he is intending to write to Ken Clarke about Ben's situation and to remind him that not only is the system in a shambles, but this man has served nearly 32 years.  If readers of this blog would like to add their voice to his, please visit the Facebook site where you will find a template letter.

Thank you for your support.

Ed.

A Bad Move

Those of you who follow the Facebook campaign would have seen the news that Ben was moving to Prescoed yesterday. A fresh start.  

Until he got there, where he was turned away at the gate!  He is now in Cardiff prison.  Apparently they did not actually have a bed for him at Prescoed, yet they allowed him to get his hopes up and even get as far as the gate. The department within the prison service that organises these things obviously has a communication problem. 

You'd think that after 30 years they could do better for him than this.  

Ed.

PS by the way, thank you for all your messages of support.

Advice and Open Prison

Contrary to myth, I have been known to bend my will and listen to advice. I've even followed it, now and then. And my prospective move to Open prison has generated a flood of words from others, some knowledgeable and useful, some plain barking mad.

The consensus seems to be that Open prison will be a challenge for two reasons. The first is my attitude, approach and reputation. The second is the attitude and perceptions of staff in Open.

Things which I assume are positive efforts may be seen as being obstructive, uppity and plain wrong by staff. This blog, for instance. In a selfish sense, it has brought me to the attention of the wider world (which was not my motivation). How many other cons can bask in the glory of profiles in both the Guardian and The Times? In themselves these are trifles, tomorrow’s chip-paper. But if they could get my foot in the door of some job opportunity on release, then surely the blog would have proven to be a Good Thing? After all, one of the most important factors in a prisoner resettling into the community and staying out of trouble is employment. If I am fortunate enough to win the Orwell Prize, for instance, that would pay for the next year or two's study fees. Very useful.

Prison staff may not see it in such a positive light. My writing and minor public profile are an irritant. Cons should not even be seen, let alone heard, in public. My subject matter is not particularly relevant, the fact that I exist at all in public is their problem. Though if my writing makes Them look silly, they should consider stopping doing silly things rather than bitching at me for bringing them to your attention. Added to this is staff's attitude to aspirations. Of course, I would like my writing to lead to a nice middle class job - that is, indoors, sitting down and out of the rain. That may seem to be quite banal to you, but to the prison service this is a monstrous aspiration, one that puts me on the same social footing as Them. They want -insist - that I aspire to digging ditches in the rain. And I mean that literally.

So whereas I see my writing and profile as having the potential to leading to a settled, crime free future the prison service sees it as an indicator of my being uppity and irritating.

My studies pose a similar challenge. This is uppity in capitals. A con working towards a qualification that most prison managers couldn't aspire to?? An outrage. That it may lead, again, to settled work is irrelevant to Them. It is merely another sign of my "superiority" and "arrogance". As if their limitations are my bloody fault!

My attitudes are equally challenging. The official justification for shovelling Lifers through Open prison - and keeping us in prison longer to do so - is that it prepares us for the community, and that this reduces our risk of re-offending. If that were true, it would make sense. Alas, there is not a single statistic, not a mote of evidence, to support that assertion. Zilch. So you will appreciate that I am not impressed with staying in prison longer to pass through this process. Worse, Open prison "prepares" us for the community so efficiently that at the end of it, we are forced to live in probation hostels for more "preparation". It's an affront to anyone with half a brain.

That said...If I wasn't prepared to give Open a proper shot, then I wouldn't get on the bus. So I will go there with as open a mind as possible, prepared to be as flexible as possible. I have no intention of arriving looking for an argument. My goal is to be released in May 2012, at my next scheduled parole hearing.

This will mean that I withdraw from much of the internal politicking that I've indulged in during my sentence, which means being far more selfish in what battles with managers I indulge in. This does not come naturally.

It will mean putting up with being given crap work, both inside and outside the prison, where my abilities and aspirations are ignored as a matter of policy. They will want me to "prove" that I can do crap work...as if the past 30 years of crap work doesn't exist. Never mind, I will have to grit my teeth if they want me to push a broom around instead of making me some type of education mentor or the like.

That said. There are two things which I treasure and which I believe hold out great potential - my writing and my studies. Released Lifers are often unemployed, or stuck in dead end low paid work. That's the nature of society and the economy. If I am to be able to build a productive and reasonable life on release, then I will have to dance cleverly and use whatever talents and contacts that I have.-And the writing and studies are, I guess, more likely to lead to something than ditch-digging.

And so I will continue with these activities. Whilst I won't pick any fights with management, if my writing or studies are threatened then I will have to defend my corner. Would that be unreasonable?

Still Waiting...

Two months after being granted a move to Open prison, I'm still sitting here. 

Bureaucracies, don't you love 'em?

My Decade 4

As the months unfolded, it became clear that the Parole Board was using any possible excuse not to progressively move people, solely as a reaction to the Rice fiasco. For over a year almost no one here was moved to Open. The Parole Board national figures for that period reveal that there was a huge drop in the number of Lifers being progressed by the Parole Board. The nature of these lifers had not changed; they were the same people they always were. But a scared Parole Board just refused to do their professional duty and opted for inaction rather than risk another media mauling.

The Board wanted me to have a full psychological assessment, including a test for psychopathy and gave me a two year knockback. Who was to pay for this? The Governor here was pulling his hair out. The Parole Board chose potential psychopathy as their main reason to screw over many who appeared in front of them in that period, leaving the Governor to foot the bill for the assessments.

That didn't excuse the nick from lying. One of the Lifer Unit staff looked me straight in the eye and swore I was top of the list and they had the money to do the assessment. Neither was true, wasting another year of my life. In the end, legal aid paid for it and I faced my last parole board with two psychologists’ reports and one from a forensic psychiatrist. That's about £5,000 to you, the taxpayer, just to persuade a fresh parole panel that their predecessors were full of crap.

Meanwhile, I had a couple of years to fill. Most of it was spent wafting around the Education Department, in a semi-detached sort of way. At one stage I was so bored that I produced a thoroughly scurrilous samizdat newsletter, the Shepton Informer, that I managed to write, print and circulate under the eyes of staff. I gather that senior management were a tad miffed but a lot of my peers were amused, so I hit both of my main targets.

Along the way, negotiations were begun to gain permission to begin my research degree. This had been on hold since I arrived at Open in 2005. This was a two stage process, whereby I had to find a university who would supervise me and then persuade prison management that they should allow it. It was a long process, some two years; before it was agreed by all that I could begin in late 2008.

At one point I did find myself in the workshop, packing various nuts and bolts for an outside company. My views on this type of slave labour are laid out at againstprisonslavery.org. My tenure was brief, my departure following a suggestion that prisoners should place little notes in the product packets that read, "packed by rapists and murderers at Shepton Mallet prison". After all, shouldn't the consumer have full information before making a decision to purchase...?

Again, this upset a section of management.  This workshop is a large employer here and a source of a useful income to the Governor. If the outside contractor was publicly connected to slave labour it may take fright and send the work to Chinese prisons instead. That was the end of my career as a nuts and screws packer but I'm sure the world will struggle onwards.

Reconstructing Truth

I assume the Editor of the Daily Telegraph is a fan of Joseph Goebels and his dictum that if you shout a lie loud enough, people will believe it.

There can be no other rational reason to explain the front page story on 16 Nov 09 - "Crowded prisons sending killers on 'holiday'." Oh, there are other potential explanations. Incompetence. Stupidity. Malevolence. Political spin. I'll just de-construct this web of deceit and let you decide whether it was deliberate lies or merely lazy journalism.

Having set the stage with that headline, the first paragraph sets up the stall for the following story. "Murderers, rapists and other prisoners are being allowed up to 100 days "holiday" away from their cells to ease the pressure on overcrowded prisons."

Let's tease out the fragments of reality from this fiction. At the end of their sentences, in Open prison, people like me spend increasing amounts of time out in the community. That is the nature and purpose of "resettlement", to prepare us to re enter society after what may be decades in prison. A slow transition is meant to both test us and prepare us. A good idea in principle, yes? The alternative being to drag a man from his dungeon of twenty years and plonk him straight into the flat next to where you live.

After several months of working out in the community for 4 days a week (unpaid, argh!), we can apply for home leave. These can last up to five days at a stretch. Don't be deceived by the "home leave" description. Rather than putting our feet up in front of the fire at home, cold beer in one hand and hot woman in the other, the reality is that we are forced to go to probation hostels.

Five days in a bail hostel, with a curfew, no drinking allowed, stuffed full of teenage car thieves and smack addicts, sharing a room, with no money, not allowed to begin personal relationships and probably in a town you have never previously set eyes on. That is meant to give us a taste of living at home, whereas most prisoners see it as an ordeal of monumentally stupid proportions. Most of these hostels are worse than the Open prisons the lifers may have come from. But these sojourns now find themselves firmly categorised as "holidays". The guys in the Telegraph office will be disappointed if we swap a week in Ibiza for this experience.

Where did the "100 days" come from? Well, if you add up the maximum number of days we can apply to spend in these hostels, each year it comes to 96 days per year. So with tabloid ease, four days a month per year in a bail hostel becomes a 100 day holiday. Simple, innit?

As is standard these days, the Telegraph even found a "victims campaigner" to pitch in. Lyn Costello of Mothers Against Murder And Aggression (as opposed to all those mothers campaigning for butchery and mayhem), complains about these "holidays". She used that exact word. You can see what happened; the Telegraph phoned her, read her a paragraph with the key words - killers, rapists, holidays - and like a defective one armed bandit she spat them a quote straight back.

So far, so stupid. But Lyn Costello and her group are deeply involved with perpetual consultations with policy makers. To be frank, I expect those who hold such positions to engage their brain before opening their mouths. If you don't know about something, feel free not to comment upon it. But this continues her prior form for ignorant ranting. Last year, when a Judge had cause to produce a pen-knife in the course of a trial, she was so outraged at this wicked wielding of a weapon that she demanded he be sacked. Lyn Costello sees a cause and instinctively bites.
As one reads deeper into the story it becomes clear what this is really about. The figures for the number of prisoners having these "holidays" were released by the Conservative Party. Their mouthpiece, Dominic Grieve, is arguing that this all stinks of Labour incompetence. Whilst in favour of these temporary releases for long-termers to ease the transition into the community, Grieve is claiming that they are being let out solely to ease the prison overcrowding.

I assume Dominic Grieve is a reasonably bright chap, so I will explain to him why he is wrong. When a man goes on home leave, his cell remains empty. He moves straight back in on his return. It is not the case that an Open prison with 50 men on home leave will ship in 50 prisoners to fill those beds for the 4 days they are empty. It is clear to even the dumbest politico that these home leave releases have absolutely no effect on overcrowding, they are not connected in any way whatever. None. Zilch. Zero. Grieve may know this, but he should know it - he should have checked.

And yet we have the man who may be the next Justice Secretary pushing some statistics at the Telegraph, supplying them an anti-Labour explanation, and watching them run with it. Rope in a Victims Representative to add some outrage, and this is a perfect story.

The Truth is duller. The story would read -"Long term prisoners in Open prisons are forced to stay in bail hostels each month in aid of easing their passage into the community. It has been going on for decades. This has no effect on prison overcrowding."

When people ask why I decided to blog, it was out of frustration at the level of the debate around prisons. The anger I felt at the media’s lazy and distorted coverage had been bubbling away for years, and blogging offered the opportunity to pitch in with another perspective.

This Telegraph story perfectly illustrates the problem. A media outlet which is happy to be spun a story that fits its political agenda; a Tory spokesman willing to ignore the truth in favour of kicking his opposition; and a rent a quote victim adding spice.

The effects of this farce isn't just to degrade the public debate, it could cost lives. If Jack Straw lives up to his knee jerk reputation he will have already voiced his concern to the prison service. Governors being managerialist puppets, I can easily see those in charge of Open prisons now hesitating before they sign the temporary release licence. Fewer long term prisoners could be going to work outside or being dumped in bail hostels.

Why should you care? Because, much as I despise the system of Open prisons and hostels, they do serve one broad useful purpose. They "test" a man; they give him more rope to hang himself. And as a general proposition I would rather find out if a man is unstable or dangerous whilst he is in Open or a hostel, because the alternative is to kick him out at the end of his sentence without this testing. The people who find out if he remains dangerous are then his neighbours.

Dominic Grieve has done a massive disservice to criminal justice in spinning this story. He has chosen to opt for short term electoral gain, and I doubt has even considered the very real consequences that could flow from his intervention.
Every story I see in the media around prisons carries some of these flaws and this distorted information then becomes the basis for popular discourse. Debates are needed around imprisonment, but how is this ever going to be possible when people are fed a constant diet of distortion? Please bear this in mind the next time you read a prison news story. And someone shoot me if I ever descend to a similar level of distortion in my writing.

Identity Theft

One of the first things that happens on being received into prison at the beginning is that we are issued a unique identifying number. Mine is K12612 and it has become as much a part of my identity as my name.

Every form, every process or procedure, each time we sign our name or present ourselves, we reiterate our number. Although it begins as being part of the process of what Goffman termed 'mortification', a part of the scheme to undermine individual identity; as the years pass we somehow make it our own.

In a strange way, our number can even give more of a glimpse into who we are than our name. From my number it can be seen that my first step into detention was at Pucklechurch remand centre as a youngster; which is the origin of the "K" in the number. The numerals, being five instead of four of them, show that I have been in for decades.

This tells people something. That I have great experience, that I'm on 'old birdman'. Couple that with my apparent sanity and it suggests resilience, a refusal to abandon the fight to maintain some sort of individuality. In some places, in years past, a number such as mine evoked a small measure of initial respect from fixed termers and new lifers. I say initial respect because if a man is an arse then no matter how long he has done he is still an arse!

In this way, prisoners endowed their numbers with a meaning that rebuffs the intent of it being a dehumanising mark stamped on by the institution.

Now we hear that they are taking all our numbers off us and reissuing new ones. We have reached the stage where so many people are being thrown into prison that they have run out of numbers! These new marks will be anodyne, devoid of the informative characteristics of the present ones. In a twist that I would never have predicted, some of us are grumbling because they are attached to their number. If you carry a mark for much of your life, no matter how disfiguring, it can become a part of you and to have it exchanged can be unsettling.

This episode also gives an insight into prison service mentality. Did we find out about this identity theft from an official notice? Some announcement, coupled with an explanation? Of course not. We have to find out from other cons in far flung prisons, who have already been subject to this process. Yet again, the institution reveals a profound ignorance of what things mean to prisoners, and an indifferent disregard for discovering. This is far more dehumanising that being stamped with a Number.

Kevin Went Mad

Now and then, the individual eccentricities that we develop tip into something more serious. Occasionally, one of us goes properly bonkers.

Kevin was the nick's resident artist, producing astonishing paintings with the barest of materials. His idea of entertainment was to lie in a haze of dope, making occasional forays towards his canvas. The art paid for the dope, a good portrait going for upwards of sixty quid.

His most controversial effort was a life sized mural of Princess Diana on his cell wall. She was stark naked, legs akimbo, servicing herself with a black dildo of impossible proportions. Kevin complained that it took him ages to finish as he had to keep stopping to masturbate. The screws, Royalists to a man, were livid. This may have been the first sign of his incipient loony-ness.

We were only really sure that he was mad when he took it on himself to march into the Education Department, knock on the office door and shove a copy of Fiesta Readers ' Wives in the face of the Manageress. "Is this you? Ozzie says this is you".

Ozzie knew no such thing. He was upstairs, packing his kit for a very unexpected and sudden move to Open prison. The fallout was spectacular. Ozzie found his move to Open changed into a move to Scrubs, "under investigation". The manageress was mortified. And Kevin went off to a nuthouse. The new occupant of his cell repainted the wall.