Open prisons contain the potential for a greater range of mischief, should you be so inclined. Some have suggested that I am.
Whilst at Leyhill, I spent a lot of time loitering in the Chapel. A haven of free coffee, good conversation, and a ready audience for my brand of cynicism.
Whilst the Chaplain was on holiday, the (prisoner)Orderly decided to have some fun. Each new arrival and discharge prisoner had to undertake a 'paper chase', going around each department to have their papers signed by staff.
In the absence of the Chaplain, the Orderly pointed these befuddled prisoners in my direction, passing me off as "the visiting Rabbi". As I then laboured under the weight of a Moses-like beard, they were content to ask me to sign their papers.
I wonder just how many forms now reside in the archives, signed by "Rabbi Arbuthnot Fotherington-Smythe"...?
Showing posts with label prison chaplains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prison chaplains. Show all posts
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Beware, humanitarians about!
Certain people ought to be looked upon by prisoners with some lightness of heart. Are not Chaplains and Doctors there to offer us various types of succour and relief?
And yet they are not the most popular people in prisons. There are many, many reasons for this but one has always stood out for me. That is, their deliberate turning away from the certain knowledge of brutality inflicted by staff.
Under the Rules, a civilian medic and the Chaplain must, every day, visit those prisoners who are held in the punishment block (or, in an Orwellian homage, what some nicks now call their "Care and Separation Unit").
If a prison has any hint of staff brutality, the block is where you will find it first. Isolated from the rest of the prison and staffed by hyper-masculine body-builder types, the potential for a toxic staff culture to develop is always present.
Every day, doctors and chaplains visit the cons held in these blocks. Every day, they see the bumps, scrapes, bruises and despair. And every single day, these doctors and chaplains eclipse the tenets of their vocation and walk away, saying nothing.
Dartmoor had a brutal block for decades. As did Scrubs, Wandsworth, Winson Green, Armley...and now Frankland. The list is a long one. In all those years of daily visits, not a single peep of protest was raised by these men and women who had adopted a humanitarian vocation.
This is why Doctors and Chaplains are regarded with suspicion or outright contempt. In my thirty years I cannot recall one medic or chaplain walking out the gates to kick up a stink about the brutality in their prison. Not bloody once.
And yet they are not the most popular people in prisons. There are many, many reasons for this but one has always stood out for me. That is, their deliberate turning away from the certain knowledge of brutality inflicted by staff.
Under the Rules, a civilian medic and the Chaplain must, every day, visit those prisoners who are held in the punishment block (or, in an Orwellian homage, what some nicks now call their "Care and Separation Unit").
If a prison has any hint of staff brutality, the block is where you will find it first. Isolated from the rest of the prison and staffed by hyper-masculine body-builder types, the potential for a toxic staff culture to develop is always present.
Every day, doctors and chaplains visit the cons held in these blocks. Every day, they see the bumps, scrapes, bruises and despair. And every single day, these doctors and chaplains eclipse the tenets of their vocation and walk away, saying nothing.
Dartmoor had a brutal block for decades. As did Scrubs, Wandsworth, Winson Green, Armley...and now Frankland. The list is a long one. In all those years of daily visits, not a single peep of protest was raised by these men and women who had adopted a humanitarian vocation.
This is why Doctors and Chaplains are regarded with suspicion or outright contempt. In my thirty years I cannot recall one medic or chaplain walking out the gates to kick up a stink about the brutality in their prison. Not bloody once.
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