Why the state of prison indicates the state of society at large?

Why the state of prison indicates the state of society at large?

No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.

Prisons are an interesting place, people are usually polarised in their viewpoints like everything else in society. Although, human nature drives the way we treat our prison populations. The public believe prisoners deserve punishment, harsh sentences, rehabilitation and removal from society to ensure they understand the consequences of their actions.

The UK has the highest prison population Western Europe, it’s a revolving door, with over 50% of prisoners reoffending within 2 years of release. Something is clearly not working here. The purpose of prisons is to teach individuals how to stay away from crime, to build functional lives that contribute to society. Instead, prisons are the universities of crime, a naive first time offender will go to prison to understand and learn the complexities of different offending behaviours while experiencing the lengths people will go not to get caught.

The House of Commons Library shows a visualisation of the UK’s prison population until 2015- there’s no sign of it slowing down with the government building newer and larger prisons across the country.

Like everything in a capitalist economy- the prison industry generates an obscene amount of capital. Think about all the officers, the support staff, courts, transport and property that the prisons are built on. It’s an industry in itself. There’s no interested to stop repeat offending because it maintains a thriving prison industrial complex. Although, there are individuals and organisations that inhabit the prison system that understand the level of poverty, suffering and harm these institutions create.

My personal experience:

I was sentenced to 2 years 8 months in custody at 21 for an alleged conspiracy to supply cannabis, prior to entering the prison system I had no idea what to expect. Part of me was naive enough to believe that the UK was different- it had a system that was based on developing human capital and rehabilitating individuals so they could avoid crime. Sadly, I was mistaken. The UK’s prison system is like a factory- especially local category B prisons.

These local jails are where all individuals stop off before being allocated across the estate. Freshly sentenced, category A prisoners who had been moved down a category and remanded prisoners all shared the prison. There were people with a few weeks to individuals with 15 years left on their sentence.

This created an atmosphere that was ready to explode in a seconds notice. By my second week, there was already a suicide of a young man with only 2 weeks left on his sentence- he killed himself because his partner didn’t allow him to see his kids and wouldn’t allow him to be released to her address. I remember vividly the day after he had died, a female officer stood outside his cell waiting for the coroner to come. She didn’t look affected- she still smiled and laughed with her fellow officers, disregarding the prisoners’ anguish on the wing.

It taught me an important lesson- to the officers it was just a job. Many would claim to have altruistic intentions behind their work but it was a job like any other. It’s like the bouncer who doesn’t let you in because of the trainers you’re wearing- he doesn’t care about the fact you are wearing trainers but if he disobeys his employer then he’ll be out of a job.

For prison officers- they didn’t care why you were there, what you had done or what you needed to change your life. They cared about making sure the doors were locked on time, the ruckus was kept to a minimum and they left the prison each day unharmed. There were exceptions to this- throughout my time, I had met officers who went above and beyond for the men in their custody.

I do believe that the attitude of the prison system is an amalgamation of the mainstream perspective on prison- punish them, throw away the key, lock them away and make them suffer. These phrases rang in my mind- without an officer having to say them or being plastered on the wall. This was the ethos of the UK’s prison system.

I genuinely believed that each category of prison would improve- but I would be sadly mistaken. There was this sense in prison that you were always waiting for the next suicide, fight, cell-spins or a full on lockdown. It's that which halts and acts as an obstacle to your progress- when you're on edge and unable to be at peace in your day to day life- how are you meant to reflect and alter patterns of behaviour that have been ingrained into you through your socialisation?

I remember so many incidents that still play on my mind years later; of people being stabbed, hot watered, attempting self-harm or suicide, spice attacks (a synthetic drug that incapacitates people but is hugely popular in prison), throwing faeces and/or urine at officers/prisoners or officers bending up prisoners. It's the diversity of violence and chaos that concerns me since most prison officers, senior management staff and employees of the establishment will tell you that, they have very little control over the prison unless it's locked down. Officers would repeatedly acknowledge that the best wings in a prison are those that are policed and controlled by the prisoners- through their own morals and values that embed a sense of honour based justice within the prison.

The sad truth is that this honour based justice delivered by prisoners is more effective at keeping the incidents of violence and chaos down while enabling a level of stability for people to live peacefully in prison. I believe as a society, we must take greater interest and understand the criminal justice system- otherwise we will bare the burden of a prison system that creates more hardened and sophisticated criminals who have been further traumatised and endangered by a system which has no desire to heal them, instead a desire to punish.

Why is this important?

One day, the vast majority, over 90% of the men and women inside prison wall will be released into society. As a citizen of the UK, I do believe it is fundamental for us to realise that these people could be our neighbours, community members and colleagues therefore they deserve our empathy, compassion and care.

Living in a country void of this, where we believe people who go to prison ‘deserve to be punished’ will work to create people who are truly distanced from the majority of society. Where people feel on the edge, with no equity or stake in the country or society they inhabit. While our prison populations are forecasted to increase over the coming decade as a result of government policy and a Tory desire to create supermax prisons- we should work to change the mainstream opinions around prison. To alleviate the suffering and pain that occurs everyday behind the walls of these long-standing establishments.

I believe each citizen has the power to help make this change- through advocacy, education and getting to know those who have inhabited our prison walls. Once you start to realise these are people, just like you and me who have made a mistake or been somewhere at the wrong time and place- you begin to understand that our current prison system does very little to enable these individuals to transcend their incarceration.

Prison shouldn’t be abolished but it should be a place of human development- where people can get off drugs, get educated, find meaningful employment and ultimately gain control of their lives. Sadly, it is currently the opposite- a place for human desecration; where drugs are rife, education is poor, employment is a joke and where governors barely have control over their prisons.

Just always remember

Prisoners are people too.