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.

A Successful Coup

It wasn't so much a struggle to wrest the editorial chair from the incumbent as an easy catch, as he got shot of it as fast as he could! And so now I find myself in the awkward position of having to deliver on the pitch I made for the job. Ho hum.

Prison magazines stand alone in being horribly complicated beasts. For all of the reforms of recent decades the reality is that only a minority of managers are remotely comfortable in allowing prisoners to have a genuine voice. And the result of this is that most prison magazines are utter tripe, a true waste of paper and effort. The more anodyne, the happier everyone seems to be.

Except the prisoners, who recognise rubbish when they see it. And so revamping a magazine is an uphill battle, requiring much effort to persuade managers that raising interesting or contentious issues is not the same as fomenting a riot and persuading prisoners that it is an enterprise worth becoming involved with.

When I edit a magazine I do so with one eye firmly on the inherent potential for development. It could act as a focus to develop those with an untapped potential to write, to design, to produce graphics, to organise and manage. It can be the basis for earning qualifications in everything from literacy through to NUJ membership. And, strategically, it can embed in the prison the idea that talking about difficult things is not necessarily an evil development.

When I last held this position, several years ago and before the blog, I saw the potential for a magazine as a bridge between the prison and the community. Why should prison magazines remain within the walls, why not engage the community? This led to my developing the idea and persuading the Millennium Commission to provide funding and I was made a Millennium Fellow for the effort.

Alas, circumstances intervened and I moved on and the idea died. But this did reveal that there is potential for a prison magazine to be more than a collection of stapled-together tat that pleases no-one. And it is with this potential in mind that I aimed for this position.

Of course, it was a great help that the education boss didn't know my name or have any idea of the baggage I tend to travel with!

And it strikes me that no UK prison magazine has ever been published onto the web. Mmm....

My Decade: Conclusion

One positive opportunity did emerge from Education, the resurrection of the prison magazine. Someone suggested I be Editor in Chief and so I organised a coup to remove the incumbent. Note for future self - meetings really do go a lot simpler if you organise the votes beforehand! He was out, I was in, and my reign of Stalinist editorial terror began.

Prison magazines are strange animals, perpetually attempting to survive against broad staff hostility and seeking a fine line between being interesting and being inflammatory. This is just the political territory that appeals to me and I had a vision to create a magazine that would actually reflect the views of the men on the landings. Whilst I couldn't expect the Governor to fund us to abuse him, it could also not ignore genuine issues and problems. And so prison magazines are more about politics than actual production.

The crew who worked with me were of mixed abilities and interests but all knew my approach to management and so had faith that I had a good plan and was determined to deliver it. Only that saved me from being lynched, as I adopted a rather firm management style. A man who whispered about democratic decision making was quietly shot.

We lasted just shy of a year but achieved a magazine with content that actually interested some prisoners; it was relevant to their situation. I still think our best piece was actually a blank double-paged spread, annotated with the comment that the intended article on the Prison Officers Association had been banned by the head of Education! Such resistance to censorship was unheard of in a prison magazine.

On the back of these efforts, I hoped to expand production numbers and increase production values, attempting to produce a magazine that could circulate in the community. It was hoped to bridge the divide between Us and Them; rather like this blog. My plans garnered a Millennium Award and I was made a Millennium Fellow. Shortly after, I was banned from Education and these garlands had to be returned. The magazine is no more.

Education banned me as a casualty in their war against the teacher who supervised us. A long campaign of workplace bullying ensued, and was terrible to witness, until the final ammunition to fire her came inadvertently, from me. Like everyone else in Education, I had loaded some free software onto a PC. This was claimed to breach the IT Protocol, implied the teacher was failing to supervise properly, and we were both shown the door.

A mere technical point was that my actions didn't breach the IT Protocol and I loaded the software when this teacher wasn't even in the prison let alone the classroom. The Ombudsman looked at my complaint but managed to find against me; he managed to do this without even looking at the IT Protocol. That man is getting annoying.

So I was out on my ear for at least six months, and the department re-wrote the IT Protocol... And I remain unwelcome in the Education department and unemployed. My last attempt to work there fell apart in a matter of weeks due to where I was sitting! Part of my research involves participant observation which, as the au fait know, can require careful positioning in order to entice the unwary to engage, and engage on the necessary topics. I selected a spot in the department which allowed me to catch the traffic of people in Education, visiting the Library, giving drug tests and popping in to the loo. The head of Education wasn't having it. My just sitting there "threatened the good standing of the Education Department and even the good order of the prison". Perhaps I radiate some plague of subversion?

A mere year overdue (but the requirements of the law don't seem to impinge much on the system) and my post-psychopath parole hearing began. Now that the heat had gone from the Rice situation, as if by a miracle the Parole Board decided I wasn't mad after all and sent me a 7 page answer that somehow failed to include any of the abuse of the previous panel. Off I should go, back to Open.

And so the decade ends as it began. I am again facing the allegation of an inappropriate relationship with a member of the Education staff. Ho hum. I can only hope that at the end of the next decade, I will be able to write that a lot of them have been spent on a beach in the South Pacific.

And having read this over, I wonder just what in those ten years suggest that I pose a risk to life and limb?