I don't miss it!
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
My Cell At Shepton
I don't miss it!
Saturday, September 8, 2012
The Chasm To Be Bridged
In a fit of wickedness I have joined the forums over on prisonofficer.org.uk, where prison staff feel content to bitch and moan more than the average bunch of miscontent Lifers. I thought - you nevr know - that it may be possible that they and I may possibly learn from each other.
So far it has been a profoundly depressing experience. I appreciate that staff have little conception of the lives that prisoners lead, or of the pains of imprisonment. But the gap in perceptions is truly mindboggling in its width.
Prison staff are the people cons see the most of. they control, in various ways, the quality of every cons daily life. Their attitudes and outlook are crucial in effecting the future course and decisions that prisoners make.
Faced with indifferent staff who radiate an attitude of contempt, who believe that prison is akin to Butlins, it follows that the effect staff have on the attitudes of cons is likely to be negative.
If staff are regarded as being a virus that spreads the Daily Mail mentality - coupled with the Daily Star intelligence - then the hope that prison can be anything more than human warehousing is dead in the water.
So far it has been a profoundly depressing experience. I appreciate that staff have little conception of the lives that prisoners lead, or of the pains of imprisonment. But the gap in perceptions is truly mindboggling in its width.
Prison staff are the people cons see the most of. they control, in various ways, the quality of every cons daily life. Their attitudes and outlook are crucial in effecting the future course and decisions that prisoners make.
Faced with indifferent staff who radiate an attitude of contempt, who believe that prison is akin to Butlins, it follows that the effect staff have on the attitudes of cons is likely to be negative.
If staff are regarded as being a virus that spreads the Daily Mail mentality - coupled with the Daily Star intelligence - then the hope that prison can be anything more than human warehousing is dead in the water.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Release Photo
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Who's Blogging Now?
The header of my being the first, or only, prison blogger was always a stretch. I believe that Jonathan King was the first blogger - though on a website rather than a blog as such - and there have been other prisoners who have popped up in a sporadic fashion for brief periods. Perhaps a more precise description would have been that I was the only regular prison blogger who examined the broader experience of imprisonment and not just ran a personal campaign or diary.
In those terms, I stood alone. As to the quality of these various insertions to the blogosphere, I leave that to others to judge. What concerns me now is that there is no longer a prison blogger. I am now a blogger about prison, not from it, and our polity demands that the debate is enlivened and enriched by a prisoner-blogger.
This isn't to say that it is easy, there are personal and environmental barriers to overcome. Some of these are ones that all bloggers face, such as being able to both write and then write interesting material. Still, I seem to have got away with it!
In those terms, I stood alone. As to the quality of these various insertions to the blogosphere, I leave that to others to judge. What concerns me now is that there is no longer a prison blogger. I am now a blogger about prison, not from it, and our polity demands that the debate is enlivened and enriched by a prisoner-blogger.
This isn't to say that it is easy, there are personal and environmental barriers to overcome. Some of these are ones that all bloggers face, such as being able to both write and then write interesting material. Still, I seem to have got away with it!
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Life...Don't Talk To Me About Life....
To say that I knew what my place was in the prison society is to understate the fluidity of the prisoners social structure. Broadly, in many places and for many years, my place was that of being useful to those in some dispute with our keepers - the grubby but vital end of jailhouselawyering.
This fairly constant social status is an important psychological crutch. If one knows ones place in the world, ones purpose, then there is some stability which allows for persistence and survival in the face of adversity.
And now...I find myself adrift. Where is my place in the wider society? Asking this after ten days of freedom may seem a tad premature, I confess, but it is an important point. There are ex-cons aplenty, but very few who have taken up or continued any campaigning role that they may have had behind the walls. Some are swamped by the demands of daily life, others only wish to wash the stench of prison from their lives as quickly as possible.
How large a place prison will have in either my consciousness or my life into this new future remains to be seen. But I suspect that for the foreseeable future, prison and I will remain on close terms of mutual detestation. It is the precise shape that this takes that is as yet unformed and leaves me feeling slightly unsettled.
Should I campaign openly and publicly, join Jailhouselawyer on the TV to mock Andrew Neil's hairdo? Write articles and spread them as widely as possible? Begin a reform campaign group? There are so many possibilities and none are obvious to me as yet.
The debate must continue. That the State holds so many in its dungeons must remain a source of unease on so many levels and the injection of informed comment can only turn a shooting match into a more subtle challenge. I would hope...
This fairly constant social status is an important psychological crutch. If one knows ones place in the world, ones purpose, then there is some stability which allows for persistence and survival in the face of adversity.
And now...I find myself adrift. Where is my place in the wider society? Asking this after ten days of freedom may seem a tad premature, I confess, but it is an important point. There are ex-cons aplenty, but very few who have taken up or continued any campaigning role that they may have had behind the walls. Some are swamped by the demands of daily life, others only wish to wash the stench of prison from their lives as quickly as possible.
How large a place prison will have in either my consciousness or my life into this new future remains to be seen. But I suspect that for the foreseeable future, prison and I will remain on close terms of mutual detestation. It is the precise shape that this takes that is as yet unformed and leaves me feeling slightly unsettled.
Should I campaign openly and publicly, join Jailhouselawyer on the TV to mock Andrew Neil's hairdo? Write articles and spread them as widely as possible? Begin a reform campaign group? There are so many possibilities and none are obvious to me as yet.
The debate must continue. That the State holds so many in its dungeons must remain a source of unease on so many levels and the injection of informed comment can only turn a shooting match into a more subtle challenge. I would hope...
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The Rest of the First Day
The computer said NO at the Gate and I had to wait until it could be persuaded that I was actually being released. Finally....
Into my brother's car and off for destination southward, newly equipped with some "Treasury notes" - quaint prison service terminology for cash- and enough tobacco to make me a prison millionaire. With the Editor at work and my first probation appointment not until 3pm, I had the fleeting idea of stopping at every service station along the way to indulge in some treat or other. We settled upon a Costa Coffee place, usually one of my most frequently avoided places. I will never, ever, get used to paying over the odds for coffee! Sitting outside slurping and smoking, I noticed some guy attempting to take a photo. Paranoia kicked in - who the hell takes a pic of a Costa at a service station??? - and I spent five minutes with my hand over my face like some lunatic.
The Guardian called. Could I knock out a piece for the website, 800 words by 3pm? Yes, I said, taking a hell of a risk. The journey down South was quite short. For a while I wondered whether I should, could, stop at each service station along the way to stuff my face with a treat but decided that "home" had waited long enough for me.
Which didn't stop me and my brother stopping off to buy me a shiny new phone. I say new, I mean new to me. It had been sharing space with other people's loose change and trouser fluff for a while before it came my way, but the end result was a Blackberry nestled in my pocket. Something else to carry about with me - clothes just don't have enough pockets. And I refuse to carry a handbag.
Home. Two trips from the car, wheelbarrowing in my stuff under a blanket to hide the HMP bags from the neighbours. Then lunch under the pergola, my new favourite spot, with my brother - who had never knowingly eaten a meal composed solely of veg before - and the Editor. Her laptop sat in front of me, fork in hand, I had to mentally absorb these momentous events with hammering out the Guardian piece. Job done, and I duly received the traditional abuse from commenters.
I was home.
Into my brother's car and off for destination southward, newly equipped with some "Treasury notes" - quaint prison service terminology for cash- and enough tobacco to make me a prison millionaire. With the Editor at work and my first probation appointment not until 3pm, I had the fleeting idea of stopping at every service station along the way to indulge in some treat or other. We settled upon a Costa Coffee place, usually one of my most frequently avoided places. I will never, ever, get used to paying over the odds for coffee! Sitting outside slurping and smoking, I noticed some guy attempting to take a photo. Paranoia kicked in - who the hell takes a pic of a Costa at a service station??? - and I spent five minutes with my hand over my face like some lunatic.
The Guardian called. Could I knock out a piece for the website, 800 words by 3pm? Yes, I said, taking a hell of a risk. The journey down South was quite short. For a while I wondered whether I should, could, stop at each service station along the way to stuff my face with a treat but decided that "home" had waited long enough for me.
Which didn't stop me and my brother stopping off to buy me a shiny new phone. I say new, I mean new to me. It had been sharing space with other people's loose change and trouser fluff for a while before it came my way, but the end result was a Blackberry nestled in my pocket. Something else to carry about with me - clothes just don't have enough pockets. And I refuse to carry a handbag.
Home. Two trips from the car, wheelbarrowing in my stuff under a blanket to hide the HMP bags from the neighbours. Then lunch under the pergola, my new favourite spot, with my brother - who had never knowingly eaten a meal composed solely of veg before - and the Editor. Her laptop sat in front of me, fork in hand, I had to mentally absorb these momentous events with hammering out the Guardian piece. Job done, and I duly received the traditional abuse from commenters.
I was home.
Monday, August 27, 2012
The First Day
As incompetent as ever to the end, I knew a full 4 days before the prison actually bothered to tell me that I was going to be released on 22 August. Worse, when I was given the parole board's decision I asked just how and when I would be released? "Nothing to do with us" said the nick, leaving me to wander around with a parole answer and a befuddled mind.
It was a strange feeling to have that knowledge of a release date. So many years have been spent attempting to stay approximately sane in the face of endless vistas of incarceration that to acknowledge its end left me in a somewhat befuddled state. How did I feel? How should I feel? This was a novel experience for me in every way.
The last few days were occupied with me attempting to juggle money around in order to settle my accounts with various parties around the prison. And I almost succeeded... People - I mean outsiders - have little appreciation of the prisoner society and its many interwoven strands. The idea of economic independence and isolation may appeal but in a society where poverty and scarcity are the norm (by official diktat) then an unofficial economy flourishes of necessity. Being given a handful of days to square the many circles involved in economic and social survival helped to fill the remaining few days.
There were so many people to nod goodbye to, so many best wishes for the future exchanged. Some of these were perfunctory ("who was that bloke..?!"), some deeply sincere, and others which were sad because both of us knew that their release was distant and profoundly uncertain.
Arrangements needed to be made, practicalities attended to. Top of that list was property and travel. On being discharged, the prison coughs up a travel warrant. But with my mountain of accumulated crap and paperwork, public transport was impossible. Offers to collect me by car were made and swiftly accepted. Only with difficulty though, as I had run out of money on the prison pay phone; my request that they put a £5 of my money onto the phone was brusquely refused, as if arranging my release was a procedure I was intimately familiar with and should have foreseen. Unhelpful to the end, the prison service seemed as loathe to release me from their malign clutches as I was to remain.
Thirty six hours before I was due to leave the prison finally told me I was about to be released. After a good nights sleep, assisted by Mamba (highly recommended by the way), the final full day was occupied with "the paperchase". A sheet of paper listing various departments around the prison which I had to visit and get to sign me off. Utterly pointless, particularly the stipulation that I needed to return a pillow to Reception. As pillows are as rare as rocking horse shit, this one was a mission that I failed.
On the morning of my leaving I had helpers to cart my stuff on a trolley to Reception. People going on home leaves were dealt with first. Having been ready since 6am, I finally made a trip to the gate at after 8 - only to return briefly. My property had to be dragged down the long drive past the Gatehouse, where I received my final bollocking. My brother had parked near the Gate and was wielding his iPad to take a picture of my coming out, which is positively frowned upon. That I paused and stood still to enable this to happen blew my story of "nothing to do with me, guv" right out of the water. Having loaded up his car, the trolley had to be returned and I had to sign the last pieces of paper - my Life Licence.
The Lifer Senior Officer had me read and sign a form. It ended with "Do you have any complaints?"
Ha! "Only one page for that?" I asked.
We agreed I would cover the main issues in a book, or I'd be there forever.
It was a strange feeling to have that knowledge of a release date. So many years have been spent attempting to stay approximately sane in the face of endless vistas of incarceration that to acknowledge its end left me in a somewhat befuddled state. How did I feel? How should I feel? This was a novel experience for me in every way.
The last few days were occupied with me attempting to juggle money around in order to settle my accounts with various parties around the prison. And I almost succeeded... People - I mean outsiders - have little appreciation of the prisoner society and its many interwoven strands. The idea of economic independence and isolation may appeal but in a society where poverty and scarcity are the norm (by official diktat) then an unofficial economy flourishes of necessity. Being given a handful of days to square the many circles involved in economic and social survival helped to fill the remaining few days.
There were so many people to nod goodbye to, so many best wishes for the future exchanged. Some of these were perfunctory ("who was that bloke..?!"), some deeply sincere, and others which were sad because both of us knew that their release was distant and profoundly uncertain.
Arrangements needed to be made, practicalities attended to. Top of that list was property and travel. On being discharged, the prison coughs up a travel warrant. But with my mountain of accumulated crap and paperwork, public transport was impossible. Offers to collect me by car were made and swiftly accepted. Only with difficulty though, as I had run out of money on the prison pay phone; my request that they put a £5 of my money onto the phone was brusquely refused, as if arranging my release was a procedure I was intimately familiar with and should have foreseen. Unhelpful to the end, the prison service seemed as loathe to release me from their malign clutches as I was to remain.
Thirty six hours before I was due to leave the prison finally told me I was about to be released. After a good nights sleep, assisted by Mamba (highly recommended by the way), the final full day was occupied with "the paperchase". A sheet of paper listing various departments around the prison which I had to visit and get to sign me off. Utterly pointless, particularly the stipulation that I needed to return a pillow to Reception. As pillows are as rare as rocking horse shit, this one was a mission that I failed.
On the morning of my leaving I had helpers to cart my stuff on a trolley to Reception. People going on home leaves were dealt with first. Having been ready since 6am, I finally made a trip to the gate at after 8 - only to return briefly. My property had to be dragged down the long drive past the Gatehouse, where I received my final bollocking. My brother had parked near the Gate and was wielding his iPad to take a picture of my coming out, which is positively frowned upon. That I paused and stood still to enable this to happen blew my story of "nothing to do with me, guv" right out of the water. Having loaded up his car, the trolley had to be returned and I had to sign the last pieces of paper - my Life Licence.
The Lifer Senior Officer had me read and sign a form. It ended with "Do you have any complaints?"
Ha! "Only one page for that?" I asked.
We agreed I would cover the main issues in a book, or I'd be there forever.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Getting Connected
I am now on Facebook as, surprise, Ben Gunn, busty networking. Look me up and don't leave me disappointed when I log on tomorrow!
Eddie Murphy
A lot can happen within 48 hours. Ask Eddie Murphy. Mine has been less cinematic but equally transformative. Two days ago I was sitting in my chair at Sudbury sharing some nibbles with Stavros the Gunslinger and wondering where I could scrounge a roll-up.
Now here I am, at home, tapping away on the Editor's laptop with the Big Bang Theory on the telly - a leviathan of electro-optics. My peace is only occasionally disturbed by a cat demanding a fuss and brief forays into the garden to gulp some nicotine.
This is not like home leave. there is no ticking clock, no holiday atmosphere. This is reality, tightrope walking without the safety net. It is exilerating.
Now here I am, at home, tapping away on the Editor's laptop with the Big Bang Theory on the telly - a leviathan of electro-optics. My peace is only occasionally disturbed by a cat demanding a fuss and brief forays into the garden to gulp some nicotine.
This is not like home leave. there is no ticking clock, no holiday atmosphere. This is reality, tightrope walking without the safety net. It is exilerating.
Promises, promises
I know I am failing to entertain you guys over the past few days. Several posts are in progress and will begin to appear tomorrow. I would do them today but the Editor is taking me to the seaside! I hope that you are all having a good weekend and be refreshed to dive back into the meaty substance of things soon.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
New Header
As I struggle to find my role in life on release, I have obviously had to alter the blog header. Anyone notice? Or have an opinion upon it?
The End Of The Begining
I would hope that old Winston might forgive my theft of his wartime quote, but it is as apt for my circumstances as it was for his. Great change is afoot and it is tempting to think that every hurdle is overcome, every battle won.
The largest personal struggle is over. I am as free as any Lifer can be within our State. And yet...freedom was, in itself, rarely my main aim during most of my sentence. That was displaced by the struggle to "speak truth to power", to try - as best I could by my lights - to do the right thing. And in prison, in a place where the powerful traduced the powerless, the "right thing" was often to challenge and question abuses of power.
And that struggle continues. how can it not? For I cannot forget those left behind, the prisoner society that fascinated, frustrated and yet sustained me. As powerless as ever, as vulnerable to the spasms of the populist politicians and the basest of media, the only change that there has been is my own release.
Change is possible. Change requires struggle. I can only continue to play some small role in this - for change within prisons rests on the efforts of those inside the carceral machine and not us on the outside. I can only hope that I may have been of some small use in the struggle, and may continue to be so.
The largest personal struggle is over. I am as free as any Lifer can be within our State. And yet...freedom was, in itself, rarely my main aim during most of my sentence. That was displaced by the struggle to "speak truth to power", to try - as best I could by my lights - to do the right thing. And in prison, in a place where the powerful traduced the powerless, the "right thing" was often to challenge and question abuses of power.
And that struggle continues. how can it not? For I cannot forget those left behind, the prisoner society that fascinated, frustrated and yet sustained me. As powerless as ever, as vulnerable to the spasms of the populist politicians and the basest of media, the only change that there has been is my own release.
Change is possible. Change requires struggle. I can only continue to play some small role in this - for change within prisons rests on the efforts of those inside the carceral machine and not us on the outside. I can only hope that I may have been of some small use in the struggle, and may continue to be so.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
