The Good Old Days 2

As far as I know, we don't often get comments from former or current clients, so I wanted to highlight the following that came in as a response to my blog post 'The Good Old Days'. The mention of models made out of matchsticks particularly resonated with me as I can well remember when I joined many probation officers had either a gypsy caravan or lighthouse on top of their filing cabinets, courtesy of grateful inmates. 

I'm an ex con. But my time away was a long time ago. You served 2/3rds of your sentence and no licence afterwards. The only time you got a licence was if you were lucky enough to get parole at the 1/3rd mark. The only leave you got was a 'short homeleave' in your last 6months and a 'terminal' home leave in your last 2months (6 days). The board of visitors could give you up to 6 months in the block and the governor could take up to 28 days remission on adjudication. Probation was referred to as 'the welfare'. We got one shower a week, one pair of clean pants and socks a week, and one clean shirt and towel too.

There was no in cell TV nor was there any in cell sanitation, just a bucket. But the food was good, everything was made on site from raw ingredients. People in the kitchens learnt how to cook/ make pastry, cakes, bread, pies, gravy's, custards. All wonderful skills to have if leaving prison and having to live an a low budget. We had books too, and plenty of access to the library. We had evening classes where you could involve yourself with things like creative writing, book binding or woodwork classes. They all afforded us skills of some sort upon release, and they also allowed you to make things for friends and family to be passed out on visits. It helped your loved ones to deal with your imprisonment more effectively. They could see you were actively engaged with something and not just festering in your cell.

We also had cell hobbies, and people made some amazing things from almost anything you can think of. Matchsticks, bread, scraps of wood, and I remember one person who carved beautiful ornate knife fork and spoon sets from the beef rib bones that the kitchen principal officer used to save for him every week. He was given enough discretion and autonomy to do so. Having cell hobbies did obviously create a black market on the landings and people sold their creations for tobacco. But prison staff weren't overly bothered. You'd showed initiative in making the object, put time and labour into its production, If someone is willing to pay for that object then your gain has been achieved by hard work, labour and honest means. Aren't those the things you need ingrained in your mind upon release? I can achieve through hard work and application?

But those were the days when being a prison officer was a career and not just another job. Those were the days when people in the CJS could back their own judgements based on their training, skills or just because you had a knack for it. They were times of great austerity in penal regimes (which should please both the public and the Tory party of today), but they were also times of opportunity where most left prison a little bit better off, if only because you'd learnt to cook, or learnt to enjoy the Sunday evening play on radio 4.

For me, I think the systems long lost its way, and expensive as it is it achieves very little for the public as a whole or those locked up. Locking people up on its own will never change someone. Its the stimulus their exposed to that effects any change. If that can be nurtured with a little helping hand on the sunny side of the wall then every ones a winner surely.

Keep politics out of the justice system. It'll make for a safer world, more productive rehabilitation, less reoffending and smaller prison populations. But please don't bring the bucket back.