So the Parole Board and various prison staff take great umbrage at my disdain for "menial" work, and the efforts I make to avoid being lumbered with it.
I thought it may be informative to list all of the jobs that I have been allocated over the course of my sentence. That's 30 years, at a cost of around £1.5 million. What did I get for my time, and you for your money? In chronological order, from 1980, these are the jobs. I have excluded formal education and periods of unemployment.
Hospital cleaner
Landing cleaner
Stripping cables
Landing cleaner
Food server
Attaching pins to rings (lynch pins)
Screwing bolts into housings
Basic welding
Kitchen cleaner
Education Orderly
Landing cleaner
Workshop Cleaner
Storeman
Textile checker/packer
Textile cutter
Wing No.l (tea-boy)
Gardener
Storeman
Cleaner
Education Orderly
Library Orderly
E-Commerce Strategist/SWOT Analyst
Cleaner
Paper-Folder
Toilet Cleaner
Nuts and Bolts packer
This is all they think I am good for. Well, not just me, any prisoner. Along the way, interwoven with this litany of the depressing, I made the effort to pass my 0-Levels, A-Levels, BSc(Hons), MA (Merit) and now into a Doctorate. Much of this study was conducted against a background of indifference bordering upon obstruction.
Now they call me an egomaniac and "grandiose" for daring to hope for more but in truth, who would aspire to the work they have allocated me over the whole of my adult life? Who would not complain at this meagre aspiration that is forced upon us?
I curse those in charge of my life who believe I should plead for no more than a shelf-stacking job for the rest of my working life on release. Worse than that, curse them for attempting to pathologise a desire to aspire. What you and I would characterise as the innate urge to achieve, to overcome our surroundings, my keepers see as signs that I am "difficult to manage" and accuse me of thinking I'm a bigger deal than I am.
I've sweated and sacrificed, had to fight and manoeuvre, to gain my education and I'm damned if I will allow the views of my keepers to deprive me of aspiring to achieve more in my remaining years. Pushing a mop around a supermarket aisle because I have to pay the rent is one thing; doing it because my masters believe that's all I'm good for is another. And I will resist it.
Whatever I do manage to achieve in life, whatever small contribution is within my purpose, will be in spite of the efforts of the prison service and its minions.
Showing posts with label ; Prison Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ; Prison Education. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Answers cont...
Q6: If prisoners suddenly had access to all the educational resources they could ever need, what proportion do you think would make use of the opportunity? (Wigarse)
A: As a general proposition, prisoners attend Education for three reasons. It's a paying job, it gets us out of our cells, and the efforts demanded are of us are low compared to other prison jobs. Note that self-advancement isn't a feature on that list!
Education is something of a bug, either one catches it or not. It took me until my late teens to really crack some books. Some people never do. And prisoners are generally not drawn from the most scholarly class.
The present educational opportunities are very limited and what is offered has nothing to do with our desires and everything to do with the institution's agenda. Basic skills rule. Worse, education is the lowest paid position in any nick.
If, however, the curriculum were broadened to encompass opportunities that interested us, then I suspect that many more would take advantage of the opportunities.
A: As a general proposition, prisoners attend Education for three reasons. It's a paying job, it gets us out of our cells, and the efforts demanded are of us are low compared to other prison jobs. Note that self-advancement isn't a feature on that list!
Education is something of a bug, either one catches it or not. It took me until my late teens to really crack some books. Some people never do. And prisoners are generally not drawn from the most scholarly class.
The present educational opportunities are very limited and what is offered has nothing to do with our desires and everything to do with the institution's agenda. Basic skills rule. Worse, education is the lowest paid position in any nick.
If, however, the curriculum were broadened to encompass opportunities that interested us, then I suspect that many more would take advantage of the opportunities.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Unusual Offer
It was a meeting described to me as looking like a conversation between a Mafia don and his mistress... that's my panama hat again!
Last Friday afternoon, sunny, warm, and sitting out around the pond in the yard. Sorry, "community garden". Why aren't we working? As a cost cutting measure last year, the "core regime" across the prison estate abandoned Friday afternoons, leaving us banged up or on association.
Leaving the Admin block, the manager took a diagonal path across the yard and approached my gaggle of mates. "Can I have a word?" We adjourned to a picnic table. I was conscious of a yard full of eyes watching us.
She made me an offer. That I do "in cell" education and get paid a tenner a week. But, unlike everyone else on in-cell ed, I have to be locked up all day. The No.l governor had already signed off on this deal.
We bantered over some details, such as access to the library, before we decided to resume in a few days time. I went back to my mates and we watched her walk away. "Definitely a thong", one groaned wistfully, "no VPL".
I bounced the offer off them and they were divided. A tenner was better than being unemployed, yet agreeing to being banged-up was a downer. None of us could unravel what was behind this turn of events.
And it is a strange and unexpected development. For two years I've been neglected, left behind my door, and any suggestion that I be employed on in-cell education flatly refused. Why, then, was this offer made? What prompted it? And why now?
Three weeks ago I applied to attend education on a very part-time basis. The application has sat in their office since then, being treated like Kryptonite. That education management don't want me in the department could be an impetus to make this new offer, essentially a bribe to keep me away. But do they dislike me that much? Possibly... Or it could be some external impetus that has freed up management thinking, maybe my university, maybe the visitor with powerful friends I've received of late. Or did I sting them with something I've written here?
This mystery will probably never be solved. Management are like the iceberg, most of their activity occurs beneath the surface and indiscernible. But without knowing the reasons for this offer, I cannot judge my bargaining power.
It is a baffling offer. Paying me to study in my cell does have the advantage of seeing me get a few shekels, and its a deal only those too infirm to attend the education department are normally permitted. So this is movement indeed. And yet; everyone else on in-cell education is left unlocked all day. Why, then, the insistence that I be firmly sealed behind my door? And given the time of year, this would see me deprived of daylight until next spring.
Should I take this deal? And if I don't, will it be spun against me?
Last Friday afternoon, sunny, warm, and sitting out around the pond in the yard. Sorry, "community garden". Why aren't we working? As a cost cutting measure last year, the "core regime" across the prison estate abandoned Friday afternoons, leaving us banged up or on association.
Leaving the Admin block, the manager took a diagonal path across the yard and approached my gaggle of mates. "Can I have a word?" We adjourned to a picnic table. I was conscious of a yard full of eyes watching us.
She made me an offer. That I do "in cell" education and get paid a tenner a week. But, unlike everyone else on in-cell ed, I have to be locked up all day. The No.l governor had already signed off on this deal.
We bantered over some details, such as access to the library, before we decided to resume in a few days time. I went back to my mates and we watched her walk away. "Definitely a thong", one groaned wistfully, "no VPL".
I bounced the offer off them and they were divided. A tenner was better than being unemployed, yet agreeing to being banged-up was a downer. None of us could unravel what was behind this turn of events.
And it is a strange and unexpected development. For two years I've been neglected, left behind my door, and any suggestion that I be employed on in-cell education flatly refused. Why, then, was this offer made? What prompted it? And why now?
Three weeks ago I applied to attend education on a very part-time basis. The application has sat in their office since then, being treated like Kryptonite. That education management don't want me in the department could be an impetus to make this new offer, essentially a bribe to keep me away. But do they dislike me that much? Possibly... Or it could be some external impetus that has freed up management thinking, maybe my university, maybe the visitor with powerful friends I've received of late. Or did I sting them with something I've written here?
This mystery will probably never be solved. Management are like the iceberg, most of their activity occurs beneath the surface and indiscernible. But without knowing the reasons for this offer, I cannot judge my bargaining power.
It is a baffling offer. Paying me to study in my cell does have the advantage of seeing me get a few shekels, and its a deal only those too infirm to attend the education department are normally permitted. So this is movement indeed. And yet; everyone else on in-cell education is left unlocked all day. Why, then, the insistence that I be firmly sealed behind my door? And given the time of year, this would see me deprived of daylight until next spring.
Should I take this deal? And if I don't, will it be spun against me?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
