Time

The passage of time is intimately woven into the "prison experience". In a fundamental sense, the passage of time is part of the essence of imprisonment.

This was highlighted for me when I returned from home leave. Although only a few days have passed, it feels like weeks. Time has slowed down. And in this prison time appeared to pass particularly quickly.

But time, and its passing, is a matter of personal perception and external reality can become almost irrelevant. All I know now is that I want to go home - now!

Wildlife

The rabbit breading season seems to be on the up, leading to an outbreak of baby rabbits littering the lawns and bushes. Rabbits, after cats, are probably the most peaceable of creatures and the most relaxing to watch on a sunny day.

With rabbits a running, the birds a singing, hedgehogs emerging and the neighbours sheep bawling, then Sudbury is a picture of fecundity and wildlife. We even have a small aviary, breeding budgies.

Amongst all of this animal life it strikes me as being a tad odd that we are forbidden to keep caged birds.

A Sorry State

While it had to happen sooner rather than later, in the event it happened sooner than expected. Last weekend I wasn't able to leave the prison because I just couldn't afford the bus fare. How pathetic is that?

The problem is a simple one. My income is £11 per week, whilst my expenditure is over £20. Lest you suspect that I am living it large, the breakdown is:

Phone bill, £7 (9p a minute)

Tobacco etc, £12

Coffee, £1

Sundries (stamps, paper, toiletries, etc), £3

TOTAL £23

And that is before I leave the prison. Daily bus fare is £6. Being out for 11 hours calls for a cup of tea and a bite to eat, another £5. GRAND TOTAL £34.

If this situation continues, I may have to grab a couple of slices of bread and. start chasing my mouse...!

Connected

As I very dimly recall, people used to pass the time on trains by staring out of the window or reading newspapers.

Now it seems that laptops and phones are whipped out and everybody sits in the reflected glow of their technology, connected to the whole world.

Connected to everybody - except the person sitting next to them.

Astonished

So the parliamentary e-petition for capital punishment hasn't reached the threshold of 100,000 signatures.  Hmm. Perhaps my despair of the masses has been misplaced.

Blowing Smoke Up My...

By the time you read this, Sudbury prison will have become afflicted by one of the most asinine policies yet to flow from the prison bureaucrat’s pen. Smoking is to be banned in the open air.

I can appreciate the arguments around smoking in enclosed public spaces, although the research on the harms flowing from passive smoking is less than convincing. But to what earthly purpose is smoking being banned in the open air, as we wander the grounds in the evening?

It is this State interference with the individual which is truly cancerous, and it is such mindless restrictions that will always heat my political blood.

It's a Living

Someone on the landing just described me as a "professional prisoner". When I raised an eyebrow, he explained, "You know what I mean..."

Ah, if only. Anyone?

Yellow? Yellow?

Within a week or so I should be the owner of a shiny, new, and legal mobile phone. I'm not turning cartwheels. These mobiles are for use outside of the prison and are stored in our lockers near the Gate, to be picked up and returned as we make our forays into the Outside.

Unlike regular consumers, we are strictly limited to the phones that we can buy. The list comprises every piece of crap left on the shelf over the last few years as the world moved on. And none of our permitted list can have a camera or internet.

Even with my vast experience of the Prison Service Mind, I'll be damned if I can fathom even a tortuous explanation for these restrictions. After all, whilst out in the community we are allowed to take pictures and surf the Net, so why deny us phones with those capabilities? A more pointless restriction is hard to find.

And as we can use mobiles within moments of leaving the prison, why are we denied access to them whilst in the prison? Why can we not wander the landings with Nokia's finest in our pocket?

The usual argument against prisoners having access to mobile phones is "security", that mindless mantra used to stifle any unorthodox thought or deed within the prison system. But this collapses utterly in the face of the reality of Open prisons. After all, if I wanted to pass a message secretly then I could do so on my own town visits, or ask one of the 200 men who leave the nick each day to pass it on.

This stupidity - I can call it no other - illustrates the lazy mindset of prison service policy makers, most of whom have never set foot in an actual prison, preferring the comfort of HQ. These over-promoted typists create policies which afflict the whole of the prison system, with no thought or consideration being given to the very different circumstances that apply across the system.

It is one thing to ban prisoners in the High Security Estate from possessing mobiles, but it is quite another to extend that to Open prisons. The result of this silliness is that on one side of the pole we are legit owners and users of mobiles; walk a further foot towards the Gate, though, and we are liable to an extra 2 years imprisonment for having such technology about our person.

If I haven't mentioned it before, I think that the prison system is run by idiots.

The Enemy Without?

My brief engagement with the wider world over the past few days is but a reminder to the wider society that tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of prisoners and ex-prisoners wandering amongst you each and every day. You have quite possibly nodded hello or shook hands with a burglar or nonce type over the past day or so.

And why is this significant? Because you wouldn't have noticed the other persons antecedents. He or she looked and acted just like any other "normal".

Prisoners, criminals, are not the Other. We are you, only with a criminal record. Only when that is widely accepted can ex-prisoners settle into society and begin to make their contribution.

You can accept or reject us, and each has its consequences - and you have a responsibility for your decision.

Herding Cats

Two - or more - years ago when it appeared that I was in danger of being released by the parole board, the Editor bought a kitten for me. Alas, my release didn't happen at that point. And the Editor's incumbent cat, Henley, was so underwhelmed by the new fluffball's appearance that he packed his bags and went to live in the garden shed. He has refused to enter the house ever since.

The kitten, Bella, grew up and had four kittens of her own. In another fit of optimism the Editor decided to keep one kitten for me; the other three were adopted by neighbours. Given the vagaries of the parole board,  that kitten, Jack, has itself now grown up. And the Editor decided that we had reached the natural ecological balance between cats, humans and wildlife in this little rural enclave.

As all sensible people know, when you move into a home then making friends with the cats is a vital part of the process. And quite simple - I fed them. Twice. Detente now reigns, although I am having to watch where I place my feet as they park themselves seemingly at random around the house and garden.

You will, I hope, have an inkling that the Editor has created a warm and welcoming nest, a place for us to grow into the future. This home leave is my first experience of so very many things and the Editor is making the whole experience seem effortless.

Reality does intrude. I now have to go off and report to Probation.

At Home

I am at home, enjoying my first Home Leave. Excuse me for not posting a blog this evening whilst I enjoy some exquisite company!

Two Worlds

Of course, we are in prison. And yet many of us spend up to six days each week out in the

community. And these are two very different worlds.

As we log out at the Gate - an ambitious title for a striped pole - we must look outwards, our mindset shifting instantly from "prison" to "community" with all that entails. Behaviour, language, perception, all have to be re-calibrated. Prison attitudes have to be shrugged off and the attitudes of the wider community adopted.

On our return we must use the short distance between the bus-stop or car park and the Gate to reverse the process. We are about to become "prisoners" once again. In just a few short steps the community must be shut away, boxed off in one’s mind and we must prepare again for the prison experience.

This shift, this switching between prison and Outside is one that I am told can be psychologically wearing over time. To be a Citizen one moment and an Outcast the next can leave some tired and prone to mistakes. Not criminal mistakes, or outbursts of outrageous behaviour, but mistakes that the prison allows no quarter for.

A strict delineation must be maintained in our minds between In Here and Out There, no matter how that strains our emotions. And this is something that our keepers have absolutely no comprehension of.

The Past

The past is, for a Lifer, ever present. History is contemporaneous. How could it be otherwise when I know that my future, my whole life, has been shaped by the singular act of my having killed another human being?

The Editor gets frustrated and cross when people leave ad hominem digs in their comments. I take a more relaxed view. If you were a friend or relative of my victim then obviously anger and resentment must occasionally spill out and onto the page.

It may make the commenter feel better; but I doubt it. As intended, such comments don't make me feel good about myself, leaving me feeling quite helpless and frustrated. There is no way, there is nothing that I can do, to alter the past and bring my victim back to life. Nothing. And there is nothing that I can do to assuage the feelings of those close to him.

I am alive and he is not. This is the unalterable situation I am in. Even if I were to die a horrible death, he will still be dead. So what am I to do? Truly, there is nothing to be done. That this frustrates and angers my victim’s friends or family is a perpetual burden for them that I cannot alter one whit.

The 32^nd anniversary of my crime is approaching and it is always a time when I become more reflective, even maudlin. Some years leave this time scarred with nightmares. All of this is meaningless, though, in that it fails to affect the past.

The future is all I have, and I know that it is a future that my victim never had thanks to me. But I must live; there is nothing else. But I never, ever forget.

So keep the cheap shots coming. I know that they are heartfelt and why should I deny those who most feel the pain of my actions a voice? And I ask you to treat such comments they leave with care. If they are people who are hurting then being shot down by other commenters is, well, a bit mean? I may have lacked, amongst many things, compassion when I was 14 but over the course of 32 years many things change.

The pain of my victim’s friends and family is not one of them. It is beyond my power to alter.

The Magazine

Just to illustrate the sensitivities of being magazine editor, I've been told to remove 2 questions from the quiz page.  How old was Jesus when he died? And what nationality was Osama Bin Laden?

I swear it would easier to chair the Ethics Sub-Comittee in the KGB.