Lifer should mean Life.. .again

It never ceases to astound me just how many prisoners contain fascist urges, advocating law and order policies which might make Himmler wince.

Cornered by two such proto-fascists, I was berated ("nothing personal...") with the concept that "life should mean life" for murderers. Haven't I heard that dim-witted slogan a thousand times before? And addressed it in previous posts!

The problem with that idea is that the definition of murder is far, far broader than the common mind appreciates. No intent to kill is necessary. All that is required is an intent to cause serious harm, and death resulting. That intent can be inferred from the circumstances.

The legal conception of murder, then, encompasses old ladies who administer a lethal drug at their dying husbands request; through to the craziest of serial killers. And this is where the "life should mean life" chant begins to waver.

It turns out that, faced with these facts, what people actually mean is that Life should mean Life only for the murders that they themselves find particularly awful. And grannies bitten by the euthanasia bug are not included. Odd, that.

These glitches in the argument aside, I argue from a more heartfelt position. That no person is irredeemable. And that no amount of suffering inflicted on a murderer alters the endless fact that a person is dead.

What a Shambles

That most toxic of combinations - media outrage and Government populism - has seen the lifer population leap from 3600 to over 10000.

Given the short-term impulses that led to this situation, the long term consequences were carefully neglected. And this is now biting me in the ass like a starving snapper-turtle.

Given that, at last, the forces that control my life appear to be content that I attain release, a swift move to open prison and a kindly Parole Board next year should have seen me off into the sunset. Alas, the open estate is choked.

With over 10,000 Lifers - easily sentenced, less swiftly released -then the demand for places in Open were inevitably going to be excessive. Our political masters failed to plan for this. The result is that I am stuck: in a queue of over 300 Lifers all competing for a move to open conditions.

The history of the Life sentence, its justification and criminological basis, is lengthy and convoluted. But never before has it come to pass that we can be told that we must remain in prison solely because the narrow path to release is oversubscribed.

Life Should Mean Life

For the hard of thinking, I will repeat one of the many problems with the "life should mean life" assertion. I won't dignify it with having the cogency of an "argument".

Not all murders are the same. A nutter who makes waistcoats out of the skin of a dozen prostitutes and a man who - at his wife’s request - injects her with an lethal drug to save her a lingering tortured death by illness are both murder. You can argue that they shouldn't be, but good luck with that.

If anyone is happy sentencing both those cases to literal Life in prison, then they are cognitively challenged. If the idea of literal Life for both those cases makes you uneasy, then drop the simplistic "life should mean life" T-Shirt slogan and grow up. Criminal justice is complicated. Welcome to a real discussion of the complexities.

The Strain of Schizophrenia

While the wider world indulges in its obsession about our access to televisions and pool tables, the real pressures of long sentences are overlooked and unappreciated.

Long sentences, and life sentences, are increasingly common. While the popular perception is of short sentences being the order of the day, the reality is that sentence lengths are at an all time high and the tariff portions of life sentences are ever increasing.

The psychological pressures involved in surviving such sentences are rarely considered. Lifers themselves tend to live in a state of semi-denial, reducing their time perspective in order to avoid facing a terrible question - how to survive decades in prison. Even with the introduction of whole-life tariffs, you will search the literature produced by our keepers in vain for any thought as to how the individual must cope to serve such a sentence.

We must live in a state of schizophrenia, for decades. We must persuade ourselves that we have some control over our daily environment, when the reality is that all we do is controlled, or takes place within, parameters set by others. How else can one cope? If we appreciated, accepted, the full scale of our powerlessness, surely our minds would collapse?

We must perpetually nurture hope for the best, whilst simultaneously planning to deal with the worst. We must believe that we will, one day, be released into the world when the immediate reality is one of a concrete box. To dream, imagine, sitting on the beach, being at home, resting in the arms of love - when on opening one’s eyes the reality is bricks and bars.

Very long sentences comprise more than the passage of time. Life sentences must be worked at, progression measured and analysed. Each interview, each report written, each transfer, each parole hearing, provides another crucible for hope, and hope lost.

To balance the pain of hope, to have a vision that sees further than the length of the cell, is to suffer. To imagine and hope for more than what the day brings only throws the reality into sharper, greyer, relief. And yet it must be done. The alternative is to allow one's world, one's imagination and hopes, to become reduced to the dimensions of a cell for the rest of one’s life.

The powerlessness, the lack of control and the uncertainty leads to some prisoners adopting a deep intransigence. If they vanish down the Block for years on end and refuse to play the game, then there is little that "the system" can inflict upon them. Some refuse to engage with the parole process. These people willingly surrender all they may have, any hope, because the pains of those hopes being held hostage by another is greater than the painful choice to surrender them. If a person has given away all he has, there is nothing more that can be taken from him. That is the only path to tread that doesn't force us into living a mental life that is schizophrenic and has only the pain of certainty rather than the pain of perpetually unmet hopes.

Reality Check

This weekend marked the anniversary of Ben's offence. Because he handed himself in and was locked up straight away, he has been "inside" for 31 years.  His release hearing is set for May 2012, and the parole board have recommended a minimum of 12 months in Cat D (open prison), which is why they need to move him there asap.

If his release hearing is successful and he is out next May/June, he will have served over 32 years.  Ed.

IPP's

My time at Cardiff was spent on what passes there for a "lifer wing". It was actually an enclave of men serving IPP's.

And they were not in a good way. A large number were living their days as if they were still serving short, fixed sentences. Just as many had no clue as to the nature of their sentence. The institution had told them nothing.

This is a disaster for them. If they neither appreciate that they are essentially serving life sentences and adjust their attitudes and behaviours accordingly, then their tariffs will become distant memories.

And if no one explains what is expected of them, how to manage their sentence and gain release, then the waste of human life will be tragic.

Hope 1

There is a crucial difference between the longest of fixed sentences and indeterminate sentences.

A person serving a fixed sentence can go to sleep each night knowing that another day can be struck off the calendar. There is a certainty that, no matter how difficult and hopeless any particular day may seem, that there is an end to the sentence. Short of committing a further serious crime whilst in prison, there is a foreseeable, predictable release date.

Lifers do not have that certainty. Our existence is a profoundly uncertain one. This is deeply unsettling. It is a feature of regular life that the days make sense, that they are broadly predictable. Act A prompts Response B. When you throw open the curtains in the morning, you never imagine that the Sun could be blue.

All that brings predictability, meaning and certainty to life is absent from a Lifer’s existence. The length of the sentence is open ended. Sure, there is the tariff, but only newly sentenced Lifers regard that as anything more than a target to aim at, with older hands like myself treating it as an interesting legal footnote of little practical relevance. Every Lifer knows that he may only serve a decade, or that the only release may be death.

And unlike in other areas of life, the Lifer has little control or influence over the course of the sentence. Progress towards release rests in the hands of others, the reports written by staff. This rests on the very subjective view of staff of anything and everything the Lifer may say or do. Everything is reinterpreted according to the particular conceptual lens of report writers.

We exist in a superposition of states, ten thousand Schrödinger’s Cats, each tucked away in our little concrete boxes, each waiting to be collapsed into a particular reality according to whichever member of staff peeps through the Judas Hole in the door.

All that brings a semblance of meaning to life is uncertain. Work, relationships, career, forward planning... all rest in the hands of others and are allocated or withdrawn for few discernible reasons. The food we eat, the cell we live in, the placing of pictures on our walls - none of these are within our control.

This is a profound state of uncertainty, when human beings crave some predictability to their existence. Such can be the corrosive effect of this that some Lifers take drastic action in order to gain some predictability. Some commit further crimes or acts which ensure that they will not be released for many more years. Some, in the supreme effort to regain control of something in their lives, reach the point where all they can do is kill themselves.

It takes a particular inner resourcefulness to manage a life where everything is uncertain, and hope is central to survival.

Recalling Lifers

A unique aspect to British life sentences is that, on release, lifers remain tethered to the State until their death. This is the Life Licence.

It allows that we can be recalled to prison for any behaviour "which gives rise to cause for concern". Note that committing a crime isn't necessary.

This is obviously highly subjective and over the years I have witnessed some truly monstrous miscarriages of justice. Those familiar with the writing of Erwin James may recall his friend, Big Rinty. Having resettled back into the community, Rinty was accused of a crime. He was acquitted in Court. And yet he remains in prison 13 years later. Such is the nature of Life Licences.

All that is required is a phone call from a probation officer to the Ministry of Justice, and police are despatched to round up the Lifer and deposit him in the nearest local prison.

A few weeks later, the Lifer should be presented before the Parole Board, who decide whether the behaviours he allegedly exhibited are, firstly, substantiated and secondly, whether they suggest the Lifer poses a more than minimal risk to life and limb.

The Lifer may then be immediately re-released. Or, like many, he will remain wandering the prison landings for some years, wondering quite what went wrong.

Of course, prison staff always hint that there is more to this than we know about, that the recalled lifer can't be trusted in his version of events. All lies, intended to serve some unspoken belief that probation officers can never be wrong. Such was the situation with a certain Prem Singh. Only when he managed to have his recall reviewed by the European Court was the full tale exposed, a travesty of baseless accusations from vindictive probation staff which led to him spending another five years in prison.

The astute will have realised by now that Lifers in the community are extremely vulnerable. One accusation after an argument, a bitter relationship breakdown, or defending oneself against a drunken aggressor can all lead to the existence that has been carefully created on release being transformed into so much dust.

The only genuine "release" from a life sentence is death.

How to Serve 30 Years

A few people have wondered how it is I have served thirty years; and why I am 20 years past my tariff.

Let's put aside the obvious concern - that I am some rabid, unstable creature that has to be fed at the end of a long stick. I'm remarkably normal, given the givens. My dossier is remarkably free of violence, considering the violent environment I have grown up in.

The explanation for my continued detention is far more subtle and complicated. It would help at this point to understand that there is a legal test for releasing Lifers, the 'Benson - Bradley test'. The Parole Board has to be satisfied that I pose 'no more than a minimal risk to life or limb^’. However, how that assessment is made is a process of alchemy.

But back to the beginning. It was a given that I would serve 10 years, regardless of anything I did. That period was my tariff -the period to be served for retribution and deterrence. It is the next 20 years that need some explaining - and I can only give you my version.

In my eighth year I had a strange conversation with the Lifer Governor. Strange, because he told me things and this was a period where we were told nothing. Until the early 1990's, we were not allowed to read staff reports on us, and we were not shown the content of Parole answers. We couldn't challenge anything said about us, and we were never told what we needed to do in order to gain release. Serving a life sentence then was an exercise in navigating a maze in the dark.

This Governor shed some light on my situation, reading out my 'career plan'. Yup, life sentences are regarded as being a career. Who knew? My career plan projected that I would serve some 16 years. Such was the secrecy and arrogance of the Home Office in those days that adding a few years to my sentence was neither here nor there.

By coincidence, it was at my 15 year mark that the Parole Board began recommending that I be moved to open prison, prior to being released. And that was the point when Home Secretaries began ignoring those recommendations. That first time was a strange moment, having a real prospect of release within sight. The Home Office refused to send me to open, citing my occasional bouts of depression as their reason.

I reacted badly. Five years over tariff, having done enough to please the Parole Board, and some politician was keeping me in prison on a pathetic reason. So I attempted what we call ^‘self-release’ - an escape. It was more to signal my discontent that a genuine run for Rio, and saw me embedded in a compost heap. A story for another day.

Four times the Parole Board recommended I be moved to open prison. Four times a politician refused, on the flimsiest of excuses - a spliff here, an argument there. That was 10 years accounted for and wasted. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that I am a 'difficult prisoner^’, it is equally accepted that I am not a violent one. My "issues' relate to resisting abuses of authority and having a big mouth. It is not for me, then, to explain away that wasted decade, it is for the Minister.

On their fifth attempt, the Parole Board did get me to open. I'd served 25 years at this point. If their first recommendation hadn't been nobbled by the Minister, I would have been released around the 17 year mark. Ho-hum.

My time in open lasted a year, and then I was returned to closed (this prison). Having skipped over the details of the first 26 years, it is from this point on that detail would help you to understand the web that enmeshes Lifers.

I arrived at Open full of positive hopes, determined to put in place the bedrock for my future on release. I had a Plan. Not just a plan, but one with a capital P. My university was waiting to accept me to begin my PhD; another university was willing to accept me to undertake voluntary work in their library; my home leave address was a sitting MP; and I was making contacts with the aim of gaining training in mediation.

Not a bad plan, considering that 50% of Lifers in the community are unemployed. It covered at least two prospective avenues for employment, social support and housing - all the key elements in a stable life. When I presented this to the relevant manager at open, he looked down the boardroom table and dismissed it: "we don't care." That's when I knew I was in trouble.

Management vacillated back and forth as I shuttled between offices, attempting to negotiate a sensible way forward. All I wanted was a chance. Out of sheer frustration, I began to refuse to undertake some 'voluntary' activities, hoping to persuade managers to note my distress.

It partly worked. Eleven months after arriving, a lifer manager finally agreed to 'consider' my proposals, particularly the PhD. This positive move was instantly undermined by his insistence that I “jot the research proposal on the back of an envelope”. I tried to explain that research proposals are a tad more complex than that, but he just couldn't appreciate my point. Stalemate.

Two weeks later I was 'kidnapped' and dumped in my current location. The official reason was that I 'failed to comply with the regime'. It wasn't suggested I posed a risk, or was intending to abscond; merely attempting to fight my own corner to build a life on release was a sufficient crime. I'm far from alone - about half this prison are rejects from that open prison.

As is the procedure, I was then referred back to the Parole Board to consider whether I should return to open. It took a year to arrange this. None of the reports from staff suggested I posed a risk or that I was unsuitable to return to open prison. In the normal course of events, I would have been given an earful for being 'difficult^’ and sent on my way. Alas, this hearing before the Parole Board took place just after the Anthony Rice scandal. Rice was a lifer who had been released, only to commit further very serious offences. The report into these events condemned all involved, including the Parole Board, for their poor decision making. I walked into a hearing just as the Board had adopted their most conservative outlook in a generation.

Bear in mind that the Board had consistently recommended I move to open for a decade; and that all that had changed was my falling out with managers. I was stunned, then, to receive a 6 page parole answer that verged on the abusive, and which concluded that I may be a psychopath. Either this Board was more perceptive than anybody else who had dealt with me in the previous 27 years, or they were paralysed by the Rice case and were desperate not to take any chance that may backfire. In the 18 months following Rice, the percentage of lifers sent to open collapsed. The Lifers hadn't changed; all that was different was the attitude of the Board.

Nonetheless, I was stuffed, stranded back in closed conditions for a raft of psychological assessments. The date for my next Parole Board hearing was set at 18 months ahead. This prison assured me that it had the resources to conduct the assessments needed to address the psychopath issue.

They lied. They had no money for the assessments and I had to arrange them through my solicitor. My parole hearing date slid back another year because of this.

Last May, my Parole Board sat again. They accepted that, whilst being a generally arrogant git, I wasn't a psychopath nor was it claimed that I pose a risk of reoffending. That I'm a pain in the arse is a given, always ready to argue the toss. But no one argues this makes me a risk, a point this Board made in their latest answer - They slapped down the opinion of the Ministry of Justice to that effect: "The panel did not lightly disregard the opinion of the Secretary of State. However, they concluded that [his] view persisted in the same error of equating an uncooperative and challenging attitude with the future risk of violent offending..."

To return to where I began, then, with the legal test for release: that I pose no more than a minimal risk to life or limb. Being irritating doesn't - shouldn't - come into the mix. Why, then, didn't that Parole Board order my release instead of recommending I return to Open? In their own words:

"In summary, having balanced your interests in sentence progression against the interests of public protection, the panel was satisfied that sufficient evidence exists that your risk of violent offending has been reduced to a level such it is safely manageable in open prison conditions. The panel did not consider that sufficient evidence of risk reduction exists to enable them to make a direction that you be released; there is a necessity, in the panel's view (in the interests of public protection), for there to be a period of testing and gradual reintegration into the community before release."

Untangle that tortured English and jargon and it boils down to the fact that they want me to spend a period in Open prison in order to see if I've been cabbaged by all the years they have kept me inside. We agree to disagree on that one.

The Ministry of Justice accepted this recommendation and set the date for my next Parole Board hearing as next summer, after 12 months in Open. That would have seen me released...

Alas, my life never goes that easily. No sooner had the Ministry spoken than I was confronted with fresh misdemeanours - they allege that two years ago, I had a relationship with one of the civilian staff, and that repossessed a mobile phone for a brief period. And so the Ministry have suspended my move to Open, and referred me back to the Parole Board for their advice as to whether I should still be progressed.

What do you think?