Happy Holiday

The past year has been astonishing and full of change and wonder. May we all be blessed with a hopeful new year - and a thoroughly dissolute Christmas.

Many thanks for your interest, comments and support.

Back in a couple of days!

Ben and The Editor

Mobile Phones

The prison system is awash with mobile phones. In the last year, 7329 phones or SIM were discovered. Extrapolate from those found to those remaining and it can be appreciated that a serious potential problem exists.

When I say "problem", the law and order lobby may instinctively assume I am referring to the crimes allegedly committed through access to mobiles by prisoners. Such is the belief that mobiles are a nexus of wickedness that a new law has been quickly shepherded through Parliament allowing prisons to install blocking technology.

What I predict as the "problem", though is the fact that British Telecom and the Prison Service must be losing a fortune from their captive customers is so many of them are exploring the free-market and opting for mobiles over the official prison payphones. And that isn't a problem for me, prisoners, or anyone - except BT. At 9p a minute to call ones family through the payphones, the delights of mobile call-plans are hard to resist.

But to return to the essence of this post - the new blocking technology, based on arguments that mobiles are used to commit crime.

If you are to take up a chunk of Parliamentary time and effort, if you are to explore the wilder reaches of technological development, and if you are going to pressure Governors to festoon their prisons with these systems then you would think that the Ministry of Justice or the Prison Service would be able to substantiate the scare stories.

Wouldn't you? Then you would be wrong, wrong, wrong. Having lobbied for this law to install jamming technology, when put on the spot to say just how many crimes have been committed using mobiles the official response is.... "we don't know and don't intend trying to find out".

This, dear reader, is how daft laws become born and how ignorant policy makers bumble through their paltry existence. It's embarrassing.

But not as embarrassing as the fact that, in passing this Bill through Parliament, not a single legislator thought to ask the question - how much crime is committed with prison mobiles, and are we all wasting time and money on this law?

Conviction by Statistics

If you happened to be around when several people died, be afraid. Obviously you shouldn't find yourself in that situation too often, granted....unless you're a nurse like Colin Norris, caring for seriously ill elderly patients.

A brief canter through Colin's case - his conviction for serial murder and the evidential doubts - can be read here at Private Eye: http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back&issue=1329

There are several threads in this case which are common in wrongful convictions, beginning with the very shaky scientific evidence. More disturbing was the cherry-picking of "victims". Other patients died of seemingly identical causes but were excluded from the inquiry - because Colin wasn't on duty. This leads to a beautifully symmetrical circle of prosecutorial fallibility. In excluding these other deaths, then Colin becomes a "common denominator" in the remaining deaths - conviction by statistics. Obviously, include the other deaths and an acquittal is certain....

Colin's case is one of those investigated by the InsideJustice team based at InsideTime, and I am so proud to be a part of a group of people who share an abhorrence for injustice. Including forensic specialists, lawyers, investigators and (from January) me, InsideJustice is one of the very few avenues left for those wrongfully convicted since the mainstream media appeared to lose interest in investigating this dark corner of our criminal justice system

The wrongly convicted live a shadowy existence. They not only suffer all of the pains of imprisonment that accrue to the guilty but suffer extra torments. In asserting their innocence the prison system denies them "privileges" and slows their progress towards release. The innocent pay a heavier price than the guilty.

Over the following year I will return to this theme and draw your attention to specific cases. Why? Because no one should be allowed to forget that innocent people rot in prisons, and because they should know that there are those who actually give a damn. It may be small comfort, but if it is all I can do then I should.

Colin Norris. Remember that name.

Random Abuse and Stuff

The recent influx of commentors who repeatedly insist on contaminating otherwise interesting threads has led some to suggest that I censor comments. I would rather not. But I also know that these demi-trolls can annoy other readers.

My solution will doubtless please no one at all, but this is it (at least for now): this post is the thread where general digs, abuse and other off topic stuff can be posted and read. Short of libel, if you take the time to write it then I will give you the space to post it.

But if I judge a comment on another thread to be more heat than light, more crap than wit, then it ends up being deleted.

Needless to say, any abuse on this policy should be posted here.....

Miscarriages of Justice

That the criminal justice system is quite fallible is something that we all prefer to never think about. When a person is convicted, it is a rare individual who immediately wonders if the verdict is correct.

This outlook is, perhaps, a necessary one. In a world we broadly believe to be governed by laws and reason, a mindset which doubts the essential goodness of the mechanisms of justice would perpetually face a bleak vista. To doubt the institutions which are intended to bind together our disparate wishes into a coherent social whole is to necessarily feel somehow vulnerable, as if life is far more unpredictable - dangerous, even - than these institutions should allow.

And so we bumble through life broadly, unthinkingly, assuming that all is tickety-boo. Until there are those very public moments when an injustice is so blatant, has become so cancerous in the body of Justice, that it has to be expelled - leaving a delighted, angry and bewildered person being dumped on the street outside of the Court of Appeal.

Only then do we have the courage to unblinkingly, if fleetingly, somehow admit that bad things do happen and rarely by simple "error" or "mistake". The scales of justice are weighted against defendants and tipped resolutely against the convicted - rightly or wrongly. The sight of these rare public exonerations often pleases people, as if somehow they reveal that right will ultimately prevail, that our system of Justice will ultimately hold Truth to its bosom.

I don't see it that way. Having shared anger and many cups of tea with innocent men as we navigated through the carceral archipeligo, I had the comfort in the face of difficulty to know that I was, at least, guilty. The innocent do not, and their experience can only be a living nightmare.

Juries do make mistakes. But the path to Justice usually goes badly awry long before the tainted, mis-shapen and partial evidence reaches them. And it persists long afterwards, as the Court of Appeal seemingly resolutely twists and turns to salvage a conviction that all other eyes can see has so eroded in the face of examination that it has become an empty declaration.

The resources aimed at miscarriages of justice are minuscule, though the efforts of those involved are profoundly personal and often Herculean. At times such effort must appear to Sisyphean. And yet to those who daily suffer the indignities of being shut behind bars by screws who say "happiness is door shaped", the work of miscarriage of justice groups must sometimes offer the only sliver of sanity in a life which is otherwise a construct of the insane.

We forget, to our peril, that Justice is not only blind but profoundly human - and that means fallible, venal, stupid, malicious, lazy and corrupt. And to imprison the innocent is a wickedness that we all too often ignore in our rush to condemn those who believe have harmed us.

They deserve better. Our system of Justice deserves better. And, most of all, those innocents need us all.

A Labour of Conviction

Good news.

http://www.insidetime.org/justice-home.asp

Argue-mental?

What is the point of engaging with social media? Why blog, why tweet? I cannot think of anything duller than repeatedly standing up and preaching to the converted. Love you all as I do, obviously, and my giant ego always appreciates being flattered, such an exchange becomes blunted by familiarity over time.

The underlying essence of the blog was always to inform, provoke and entertain. Over the past years I hope that, in some measure, I have at least occasionally delivered on this ambition. It was, in a real sense, never intended to be about me – but I was the peg on which issues could be hung and debated. If your postman wrote a prison blog I suspect you’d not be reading it; the author is important, but never intending to be central.

By intruding into the public space I knew that there was some chance that I would be a lightening-rod for people's views on crime and justice. And in a way I hoped for that and write the occasional piece that is deliberately provocative.

The only way to change opinions is to engage with people, and that means the people whose views are most divergent from what I hold to be positive and useful. Hangers and floggers, in the broadest terms, are the people to engage with if change is to be provoked. Or even just to prompt a pause while they think.

And this is why I tend to go against advice that says to “ignore the trolls”. Well, maybe they are not trolls. Maybe they hold genuine, if barmy, ideas. And like anyone else, if you don’t engage then it is impossible to make them think. It doesn’t for a minute imply that engaging leads to thinking, but one is a necessary condition for the other.

There are limits to this, obviously. Time. Interest. And those who slyly try to dig away at me or the blog without actually considering the issues, they really don’t catch my interest. But as a general proposition, I will talk to anyone.

Ideas are formed and altered through the clash of differing constructs. Hurling abuse may be entertaining but actually grows weary very quickly. It can be a fine line, which is why I often engage.

Daft though it may be, only by talking to an idiot can he be informed.

Brief Hiaitus

I am run down and plagued by post-shingles tiredness, pardon the brief break in posts for a few days.

On my return, I have more good news on the employment front....

Even if still no bank account!

Injustice 2 - The Thakrar Story

HMP Frankland – Kevan Thakrar, racist brutality, and the prison's response

It is rare that I write a blog about an individual prisoner. Whilst inside, any urge to do so was tempered by a rule prohibiting me from identifying either prisoners or staff. Now I have no such restrictions.

But I will talk about Kevan Thakrar. Keen readers will Google the name and find that he is a prisoner, and like all prisoners has been convicted of a fairly horrible crime. I don’t defend this.

But I would hope that his alleged antecedents do not excuse the staff at HMP Frankland’s Segregation Unit (the Block) from running a campaign of racist brutality that left Thakrar in fear of his life. His own unwillingness to be cowed was only made worse – in the eyes of screws – when he attempted to highlight the situation with his MP and the media, and defending his fellow prisoners.

And so the day came when a group of staff charged his door to inflict another beating. Thakrar defended himself rather too well on this occasion and stabbed three staff. He was promptly charged with attempted murder.

And Thakrar was acquitted of all charges. The all white, non criminal jury accepted his evidence of acting out of self-defence. As could be expected, the local media was hijacked by the prison governor and prison officers to portray this as an outrage. The brutality in Frankland has still not been investigated, the jury be damned.

Never willing to accept defeat, the prison service promptly dumped Thakrar in the deepest hole it could find, the Close Supervision Centre at HMP Woodhill – a dungeon within a dungeon. Their excuse for this act is the very crime Thakrar has been acquitted of.

Here is Thakrar’s own account:

"Following my unanimous Not Guilty verdict at Newcastle Crown Court for attempted murder x 2 and GBH section 18 x 3 against Frankland prison staff, by a jury of 12 white British members of the general public, I have been hearing a lot about how this was due to me suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Although it is correct to say that due to the serious gang attack I sustained whilst on remand at HMP Woodhill on 31 May 2008 that I do indeed have PTSD, the reason why I am innocent of any assault on Frankland prison staff is because I acted in self-defence.

Had I not defended myself, I would have suffered life-threatening injuries in a pre-planned racist attack. Staff at Frankland had taken exception to the assistance I was providing to victims of assault by staff in the segregation unit and decided my time was up.  How dare I report staff criminality to the police!

The actual tipping point came when I wrote to Durham MP Roberta Blackman-Woods.  I asked for her assistance in putting a stop to the racial attacks by staff and culture of criminality which was being covered up by a code of silence.  The help Roberta Blackman-Woods MP gave me was to send a copy of my letter to the governor of Frankland (thank you!) who then had enough.

Unfortunately I was still almost killed after I defended myself.  The Durham police have attempted to cover this up and I am yet to see any of the media report these real facts.

The Prison Service, which feels embarrassed by this whole situation, has kept me locked away in the isolation unit of the Close Supervision Centre at HMP Woodhill.  For two years now, the psychological warfare has included stopping all communications to friends and family through mail and phone, and non-stop aggression.  I am an innocent man, wrongly imprisoned in the first place, and proven to be innocent of the false allegations made by corrupt prison staff – am I really worth £250,000 of taxpayers’ money?

I am sure everyone can understand my safety in prison from corrupt, criminal prison staff is now much harder to ensure. It must be difficult for Prison Service management to find a safe location for me to progress through my wrongful sentence, so I wait with anticipation to see where they will move this innocent man to.

It is a sorry state of affairs made worse by the pathetic lies coming from the corrupt prison officers’ camp in order to increase the possibility of compensation.  Surely the time has come for the oppressors to give up with their unjust acts and recognise that the 12 members of the jury saw the truth.  The time has come to move on and learn from mistakes made on all sides; attempts to spin more lies, half-truths and misrepresentations to cover up the racist, sadistic nature of the Prison Service institution help no-one.

The jury were unanimous: I acted in lawful self-defence using reasonable threat against the threat posed.  The way forward is to seek to eliminate that threat so no other prisoners have to experience the torture and no innocent bystanders get burned by the fire which the corrupt staff continue to fuel.  A ‘rehabilitation revolution’ can never occur until an independent body is tasked with rooting out these problems and is paid for every corrupt official exposed.

Kevan Thakrar, Saturday 18th February 2012”

There are those – perhaps many – who sincerely believe that what is done in prisons is done with consideration and in a proper humane manner. I cannot criticise those who live in ignorance – even if it is wilful.

But the situation at Frankland has been known throughout the prison system for years, and exists in the face of all official regulation and the various watchdogs. Power corrupts; and the prison system is the essence of State power.

All  can ever do is drag some of these events into the light. Ignorance can no longer be an excuse for indifference.

Injustice - The IPP Hostages

The injustice that is the IPP sentence has passed much of the public by. There are few column inches dedicated to it, rarely a televised word, and only a sprinkling of legislators have given a damn. And yet over 5,000 people sit in prison for no reason other than the fact that their avenue to release has been blocked by the very institutions which put them there in the first place.

In thrall to the populist media mob the last government created a new indefinite sentence – Indefinite detention for Public Protection, the IPP. There was no legal requirement for this new sentence; Judges had the Discretionary Life Sentence at their disposal to deal with those who they  believed posed a future public danger.

This was insufficient for the government, in that Judges had the temerity to use their judgement. With the IPP sentence, judicial discretion was neutered. A defendant who fitted a set of fixed criteria was obliged to be sentenced to IPP. Government predicted that only a few hundred people would be affected. It was a calculation of monumental stupidity and instead thousands of IPP sentences were handed down.

The government threw these people into the maws of the prison service and has watched them been crushed ever since. Those serving IPP can only be released by the Parole Board. And the Parole Board will only order release if the prisoner has completed various Offending Behaviour Courses.

The government has refused to resource the prison system to supply sufficient courses for the IPP prisoners, leaving them stranded and choking up the whole lifer system.

Now, thousands of people are stranded in prison. The government has abolished the IPP sentence – at last – but offered no solution or hope to those thousands remaining in prison serving that sentence. This is not only one of the most disgusting populist measures any government has instituted; it ranks as one of the grossest injustices.

Over 5000 people languish in prison, and their families stew in anguish, awaiting a solution.

Smoke and Mirrors

With a reoffending rate at around 60 percent, deaths in custody rising and general discontent from all quarters about imprisonment, it says something profound about the nature of our polity that the Minister of Justice chooses to focus upon preventing prisoners from "getting too cosy" with each other.

That's the Daily Mail happy then. Now, what about the rest of us...?

The Survival Plan

I know that I exist in a highly privileged position. Few of my counterparts have the audience that I am fortunate to enjoy, which began with the birth of the blog in 2009.

This public platform carries many responsibilities as well as pleasures. One is that I don't cry wolf on my behalf, lest people become very bored and I would loath to abuse my position.

Over the past few years I have had the need, due to dire circumstances, to broadcast some type of Mayday. And that experience has revealed that Criminal Justice decision makers utterly detest having their business hauled into the public eye. The fear of publicity is so great that the Governor of my last posting personally read the blog every day, just in case.

Shining a light on my situation in desperate times has had a significant effect on decisions. The noise made by readers has saved me from getting a kicking on at least one occasion. When I met the Director General last year he complained that I was the guy whose readers were jamming up his Inbox. Happy days....

And now there is this difficulty with Probation. A crisis averted is one less hurdle to overcome and so I squealed loudly once it became clear that a bundle of grief was poised to descend upon me. Your vocal dissent over my position has been heartwarming and effective. Backchannels suggest that any adverse decision is now being pondered and passed by the keener eyes of lawyers.

My firm legal advice is that any restriction ion my public broadcasting would be unlawful and that we would win a challenge. Equally, legal advice is to comply with any restriction until that challenge is won. I am not keen to return to prison, I have to confess. Fascinating though I find the institution and the concept,  loath the actuality and always have. Returning is not a voluntary option.

The Plan, then, is to abide by any restrictions imposed - whilst simultaneously making as much noise as possible, through third parties, and going to the High Court with all haste. The blog, at least, will continue through the efforts of my glorious and mysterious Editor. And any battle will be widely reported.

For the meantime, normal service continues then. Thanks, again, to you.

Dangers of Censorship

Lifers may be released from prison, but we are never free. We continue our sentence in the community, liable until death to be recalled to prison. This is a detail of our – my – existence which is rarely appreciated as I appear to be building my life liberated from the confines of bars and bolts.
The parameters of my life are determined by my Life Licence (always in my wallet) and the demands of my supervising probation officers. You can imagine the potential struggles that can arise in a fluid and complicated life. And when the Life Licence is broadly drawn and interpreted by those supervising me.

I have always campaigned for prison reform. It has been woven into my daily life for much of my adult life in various guises. From helping those suffering a miscarriage of justice, to those defending themselves against malicious staff, through to the large campaigns such as the prisoners union and the vote. One way or another, fighting for change has been the strand that has run through my life; and still does.

As well as operating in the private sphere, assisting individuals, I am one of the very few prisoners who lifted our heads above the walls and attempted to engage with the wider world. At first this was largely through the pages of Inside Time (an excellent newspaper). It was only with the launch of the blog that my voice became amplified. The Ministry of Justice was so affronted by this effort to communicate that the order was issued to prevent all and any communications from me reaching over the walls – an order unprecedented in British penal history and thoroughly illegal. Within days I had overcome this hurdle and the Ministry surrendered; the blog grew and survives to this day.

On my release in August I entered the new world of connectivity, and determined to make use of every stream of communications at my disposal. Facebook, Twitter, the blog, newspapers, television…I have engaged with them all on one prison topic or another, all with the perpetual hope of adding to the perpetual debate around imprisonment.  Hope that it isn’t too arrogant to suggest that I have a near unique perspective to insert into the national conversation.

In these efforts, my first expansion into the media came on my first day of release with an article for The Guardian. The next notable public appearance was with Jon Snow on the Channel 4 news. And it was at this point that my Probation supervisors became uncomfortable.

For I am only allowed to undertake work – paid or unpaid – with their express permission. And my recent TV appearances discussing the Prisoners Vote issue has become a tipping point in this matter. Although unpaid, this is viewed as being “work”, rather than my merely continuing the campaigning that delayed my release for so long.

In principle, speaking in front of a camera is no different than my appearing in print, on Twitter or ion my blog. If probation are to insist that I beg permission before opening my mouth or reaching for my pen then I will be denied any voice. I will suffer greater censorship than I did whilst behind the prison walls.

This situation may appear to be absurd. And it is. And yet this is the life that I live, the constraints under which I am released into society. And it makes me fractious.

I expect a formal Warning Letter to appear imminently, prohibiting my speaking in public. If I defy it, I can be returned to prison to continue my sentence.

This blogpost is my flag-waving. If I suddenly vanish from the internet, it is because I have been ordered silent. I appreciate your support and comments on this situation.

Media Tart

It was a struggle to keep a straight face when I said to the guys in the office, “I must go now, my car is waiting…”

My brief flirtation with being a media-tart is the product of a lot of thought. My giant ego is robust enough not to need to see my name “in print” so to speak, nice though it is to be wanted. But that is no earthly reason to get out of bed at dawn to hit a TV studio.

In many ways this popping up on telly to disturb your peaceful cornflake munching is a logical extension of my public perambulations from within prison. And the motives are the same. There should always be public debate around prison and its many attributes, purposes and place in our society. When the State deploys its power in such a naked and violent form then it should do so in the knowledge that it is under the closest scrutiny.

That was the initial impetus behind the blog at its conception. Casting any light, no matter how meagre, into the shadowy corners of the State is, as I view the world, not only helpful but should be mandatory. We cannot hold the State to account if we are casually ignorant of what is being done.
The periodic upsurge in interest over Prisoners Votes had the media folk reaching for their little black books and my name sometimes appears as a viable Talking Head. Not too shabby-looking, free, and able to string a reasonably long sentence together….the list of requirements is hardly a lengthy one!

And if there is any issue related to prison that I feel I can contribute more light than heat upon, then I will continue to stick my head above the parapet. There are far too few of us either willing or able to do so and I feel that is imperative that (ex) prisoners intrude as often as possible into the various debates.

If we all retired into obscurity, the debate would be left solely in the hands of the politicians. And if it means I have to get up at 5am to prevent that, just send a taxi and I will be there.