Books for
Prisoners
With
unintended irony I begin writing this at a café in the sunshine – opposite a
small bookshop. I am carrying so much tech that if war breaks out, I’ll be
targeted for being a major communications hub. Smartphone, tablet, laptop, Wifi
hotspot…..short of welding a satellite dish to my hat, I’m about as connected
as its possible to be.
The world is
at my fingertips. I can send messages via dozens of different routes, and
receive through as many more. If I want to know the circumference of a gnats
eyeball or the daily doings of a Chinese Emperor, its but a matter of seconds
before enlightenment flits across one of my screens. We live in a remarkable age of information.
Or most of
us do. For the high prison walls do more than cast a shadow over those within
their grasp. The walls are a physical manifestation of the deliberate isolation
of prisoners. Not just physically, but in the very sharp sense of cutting off prisoners from the very essence of
our modern life – information.
Without the
internet, prisoners are limited to ye older channels of information . Imagine
sitting in a concrete box. Alone. Stripped of autonomy, control, the limits of
your freedom of choice restricted to four paces back and forth from the steel
door to the barred window. You have a question. How do you break free from your
tomb to search for enlightenment?
In defending
his policy to restrict the ability of prisoners to have books posted in from
outside, Grayling claims an awful lot, but mysteriously stays silent on so much
more. Perhaps he is uninformed. Perhaps he just doesn’t give a damn- vote
grubbing triumphs all in the Ministry.
The two main
claims made by the Ministry to justify this further restriction on prisoners
accessing information are both mendacious. Firstly, it is claimed that books
posted in are an avenue for drug smuggling. Potentially true, of course. Which
is why all prisons have an x-ray machine and access to sniffer dogs. Perhaps
prison staff just can’t be bothered doing their job? A lapse now signed off on
by the Minister himself.
Ignoring these
expensive security measures for a moment – as Grayling does – the other fatal
blow to this silly “security” scaremongering is for prisoners families and
friends to order books to be delivered direct from publishers. Or is the
Ministry going to hint that Penguin and Amazon are fronts for the Medellin
cartel?
In essence,
the security argument is a nonsense. It only gets headspace because of
widespread ignorance of the details of prison life. In the knowledge that
prisons have scanners and dogs, Graylings argument is revealed to be utterly
threadbare. Not a lie, but mendacious nonetheless.
Graylings
second argument is that this book ban is largely irrelevant – anything prisoners
need can be obtained through the prison library. He will look you in the eye with cold
sincerity and tell you this. Let’s assume ignorance rather than deceit on his
part….though it is a very fine line with Grayling.
Access to
the library is a statutory right under the Prison Rules. But then the Rules
need to be given life by prison staff. Parliament may propose, but it’s the screw
on the landing that makes it happen. Or not. Unlocking prisoners and escorting
them to the library is at the top of no ones list of things to do. The library
should be accessed once a week. Assuming that happens, the time is extremely
limited – 30 minutes is a good run – and staff hustle you along. The staff rest
room doesn’t occupy itself, you know….
If decency
and the Rules actually do prevail for once, and library time is given and even
fostered, the prisoner is then at the mercy of time and the library service. In
this age of mangerialism, the rules and regulations that govern every minute
aspect of prison life fill shelves. If a prisoner wants to look up, say, the
process for temporary release, he will need several library visits merely to
read that Order.
A specialist
book would have to be ordered from another library. It may take weeks.
Reference works cannot be so ordered, leaving the serious student bereft. The
library service is not to be dismissed as a vital source of information, but
its limitations are rarely recognised by “outsiders”, who are used to a more
rounded library system.
These issues
came to a head for me during my Masters (and later my incompleted PhD). The
books I needed were extremely specialist and many only available from the
university library. Under the Rules, these would have been unobtainable. It was
only through the good efforts of a member of staff that I was able to complete
my Masters – with the member of staff risking career and income by indulging in
wholescale book smuggling to and from the university.
Access to
the library is does not fill the information gap created by Grayling’s ban on books
being sent in. The material and the time available is insufficient for
prisoners to even read the rules governing their lives, let along anything
else. Does Grayling know this? Do his advisors? Do they care?
The grand
lie, the mendacious nature of this policy to deny prisoners books, is that it
has nothing to do with drug smuggling nor library access. And few unfamiliar
with the landscape of prisons will realise just what they aren’t being told.
To make it
explicit, then. This policy of Graylings is everything to do with increasing
control on prisoners. Nothing more, nothing less. For since 1995, privileges
must be earned through good behaviour. In practice, this means that the higher
up the privilege scale a prisoner climbs, the more of his own money he can
spend – up to the maximum of £25 per week. Most prisoners do not have such
money at their disposal. But what little they do have is spread thinly.
Clothing, bits of food and drink, TV rental, tobacco, stamps, phonecalls….all
must come from a prisoners limited monies. Throw in the cost of books, and the
idea that prisoners can order from publishers becomes revealed as being
ridiculous.
If families
and friends were allowed to order books for prisoners, and pay for them, this
would “undermine” the privileges system. That is what this policy is about. It
is intended to make prisoners utterly dependent on the prison. The consequences
for education, learning, self improvement, are all irrelevant.
This policy
is contemptible. Inserting itself into a discourse centred on “security”
concerns, it’s actual purpose is about control – plain and simple. That it
cripples the already severely limited
opportunity for post basic skills learning is a matter of no consequence to Grayling.
Either Grayling
doesn’t realise this, or he just doesn’t give a damn. I dread to think which. For
ignorance can be as dangerous as indifference; and with free access to
information, Grayling has no excuse for his lack of understanding.
Books,
knowledge, information….the bedrock of our modern world. To strip these from
prisoners and yet hoping they can change, blend back into society and
positively contribute, is ridiculous on the face of it. This policy must not
stand.
