Happiness is Door Shaped

by Ray Deveroux

  Grasses, when found out, were given a good kicking, to put it in mild terms, by other prisoners and sometimes ended up on the rule 45 wings. This was a protection wing for sex offenders, sometimes known as nonces, ponces and grasses. Some were prisoners who were running for cover because of debt through tobacco and drugs. These types of prisoners were frowned upon, again, speaking mildly. They were, in fact, fucking hated and had to be kept from the normal population for fear of being targeted. Even today, when the normal population prisoners see Rule 45’s, they will go out of their way to abuse them. Spitting and general threats are always present.

  Reporting back the next day to my mentor, Fossie, I told him about Brownie. He knew him well and advised me to stay away from him. Brownie was two years into his service, but gave the impression that he had many years under his belt. He had been called up to the Principal Officer’s office on a number of occasions. Even his probation period was extended, which was unknown back then. He was destined very shortly to be called up to the Governor’s office; word had got to the Governors ears, without me reporting anything, about drug use and possible trafficking drugs into the jail.

  Unfortunately, it still goes on today. Some prisoners will grass you up if they feel like it, or they think that by grassing on Officers they will gain some advantage for themselves. The other pitfall is that you can get sucked in to bringing more and more stuff in, or greed takes over and you find yourself unable to refuse, no matter what the consequences are.

  Officers, if they have any sense about them, will abide by the basic golden rule: never ever trust what a prisoner tells you without checking it out first. Don’t bring anything in or out of the prison for the prisoners and never speak to prisoners about your personal life. And for fuck’s sake, remember this – they will you tell lies.

  During your twelve months’ probation period, you had to perform all the duties of a Prison Officer to a good standard. These included: cleaning Officer, where you were in charge of the cleaners on your wing, collecting and serving meals with your most trusted prisoners, making sure there were enough cleaning materials and all the mops and buckets were present. This really is in simple terms; it was a hard and challenging and sometimes thankless job, which was nearly always performed by the experienced Officers. Those Officers who were still in probation were rarely seen in that role. Other jobs included overseeing domestic and legal visits, escorting prisoners, security searches, cell searches … the list is very nearly endless. Basically, you did as you were told; it was after all a discipline service. Although not so common nowadays, Officers go through four weeks training and on the job mentoring. Apart from the basics at the school there is a distinct lack of experience and a noticeable lack of respect.

  Whilst learning the ropes of the visits Officer I never got to see Cindy on visits, thankfully, although more embarrassment would come later on that subject. We were told to monitor both the prisoner’s actions and facial expressions. You can tell a lot from prisoner’s faces and their expressions towards their visitors. We were looking for signs of trafficking.

  One time, an argument started between one of the prisoners and his young girlfriend; apparently, she had forgotten to bring him in some fresh shirts. He was complaining bitterly and loudly, calling the poor girl all the names under the sun, saying that he had been wearing the same shirt for the last week and he stank, and he did. Since they were both close to me, I started to walk over, not wanting the incident to escalate, when she stripped off her T-shirt and threw it at him, her naked and very ample breasts swinging freely to everyone to see. Not content with that, she, and encouraged by the whistles of the other prisoners in the visits hall, started to strip. This was never in the training manual. Luckily, not for some I suspect. She stopped short of pulling down her jeans and stormed out, breasts swinging, to the chorus from the other prisoners of, get em off, get em off, get em off! You could hear the sound of hands smacking faces as the other wives/girlfriends took issue with their respective partners ogling this half naked women.

  When you tell others of that story, they don’t believe it. Prison Officers of course, especially the dinosaurs, will come back with a better one.

  I did pop into my local and meet up with the darts team. I saw Cindy, but she had obviously told them all about my job as a “screw”. The atmosphere had completely changed; conversation was muted and there were cold glances in my direction from other drinkers in the pub that indicated that I was no longer one of them. It was something that police and prison Officers got used to. I never went back there again.

  I came to Norwich with three other NEPO’s; me, Andrew, Les, and John, all of whom spent three months at the jail before our first posting to HM Prison Whitemoor, in Cambridgeshire. The posting was at the time, a blessing for me, Norwich being an hour travelling each way. H.M. Whitemoor was only a twenty minutes’ drive. Whitemoor was a high security dispersal prison, holding the some of the highest category prisoners in the UK.

  Categorisation within the Prison Service remains constant throughout establishments, whether public or private sector. Category A was for serious offences, such as murder, rape and sex offences, notorious gang leaders, extreme violence, armed robbers and high-end long serving drug suppliers as well as terrorists. Category B were much the same as the above, but on a less serious level, as well as violent prisoners and those who needed a high level of security because of links to outside gangs. There is also a sprinkling of street robbers, burglars, bank robbers and firearm offenders. Category C were mostly burglars, house breakers, thieves, street robbers, handbag snatchers and meter robbers. Category D were mostly low-end and white-collar workers. It also housed those that had gone through the system from Category A down the ladder to Category D and were placed in open prisons, ready to rehabilitate themselves into eventual release back to the community.

  The list of types of prisoners held in various categories is not exhaustive; there are many other offences that will fit into the prison system. Some deservedly should be locked up and kept well away from the general public, while others simply should not be in prison. There are many in prisons with serious mental health problems that should be in mental institutions. However, because of the shortage of space in the institutions, they are left to fend for themselves in jail. This puts more pressure on the prison Officers on the landings, having to cope with prisoners who are clearly not suited to the prison environment.

  All the NEPO’s that started training in H.M. Prison Norwich knew that as soon as H.M. Prison Whitemoor opened, we would be transferred there. This, I guess, was the same for a number of my colleagues, most of whom were spread around the country waiting for the new jail to open. Some Officers were posted there straight from the training school. When the jail first opened, it was nearly filled with new Officers or some like me that had some experience of working in a prison. I was glad that I had at least three months under my belt before being transferred there. I felt really sorry for the NEPO’s that came straight from the school; they would not have had a clue of how a prison really works, or had the benefit of being under the wing of a dinosaur, in an old jail.

  HM Prison Whitemoor

  HM Prison Whitemoor was a brand new jail consisting of four main wings or house blocks, as they were called. It was designed to hold category A and B prisoners, both normal location and R45’s (sex offenders)

  All cells were single and had in-cell sanitation, all had fitted sinks and toilets. They were the same size and fitted out uniformly throughout the prison. It was an eye opener at first, all the new staff being shown around an empty jail with modern facilities, gym, showers on every landing, laundries, kitchen and server areas, classrooms, the list went on. Prisons are like communities within communities; this looked like a brand new estate, built especially for the modern Prison Service and must have cost a fortune. Of course all us new Officers were absolutely chuffed to bits, landing in a brand new jail, no smell of human excrement hanging in the air, changing rooms with showers
for staff and a good Officers mess. What more could you want?

  It wouldn’t last long; you could tell by the demeanor of the more experienced Officers. Unfortunately, experienced Officers were very thin on the ground and well spread out. Some of the Officers had worked in dispersal prisons and knew what working with some of the most dangerous prisoners in the country was like, while others had been transferred there from other establishments from around the prison estate, and were not used to working in such conditions. I found it very strange, but then the Prison Service is a strange place to work. There was about seventy five percent new staff, some straight from school, the rest were made up with staff from a mixture of high security jails and other establishments. Strange, because here we were in one of the highest category prisons in the UK, with some of the most dangerous prisoners in the country, staffed, mostly with young inexperienced Officers who had never seen the inside of a jail before, let alone come face to face with serving prisoners.

  Some of these Officers were newly promoted Senior Officers and Principal Officers; there was a good dose of Governors who, again, had little experience of working in such high category establishments. But then later on, when the jail and its prisoners started to show its full colours, no Officer in his or her right mind would volunteer to go there, save for promotion, or the money waved under their noses. Some Officers were moved there after getting into the seriously Fucked Up Stage; just the sort of staff you needed in a dispersal prison.

  It started well enough, the first wave of prisoners being the R45’s. These are normally easier to manage, physically, most were older men serving long sentences, who had done terrible things in the past and lost all links with the outside world. Although easier to manage physically, mentally they could be very manipulative and knew how to work the system.

  Rule 45’s were housed on house block four. I don’t know what the geography is now. Most jails go round in circles with different Senior Management Teams deciding that they know better and, like all new Management Teams, get the broom out for a clean sweep.

  All of the new Officers cut their teeth on the landings with a few experienced Officers ensuring we didn’t cock it up between us. You could tell the very newest Officers, doing everything by the book, having never worked in a jail before in their life, fumbling with keys trying to unlock cells, going through the rituals of speaking to prisoners, just like they were taught at the school. Us “old sweats”, those who had done the landings before, were trying our best not to laugh; at least we had a head start and knew most prisoners were lying, cheating, and manipulative bastards. The prisoners knew too, which Officers were straight from school and which weren’t, and by fuck they played on it, as we knew they would.

  In the early days there, I was lucky; whilst at Norwich, I had shown an interest in sentence planning and the rehabilitation of offenders. Of course, some staff were dead against this, believing that prisoners should be locked up and the keys thrown away. But I believed there were a few that could, with the right kind of education, be released to lead a normal fulfilling life.

  Sentence planning is a method in which we looked at the offence and fashioned the right kind of course around it. This was done in a face-to-face interview with the prisoner. When you get prisoners on their own, they change. The bravado that occurs around their peers on the landings disappears and, in most cases, they become rational human beings.

  And so it was I ended up, for a short while anyway, in the Sentence Planning and Development Unit, affectionately known as the SPUD unit. I found the work to be interesting. Some of my peers, being like-minded, and enjoying the challenge of trying to help prisoners, joined us.

  Officer Kenneth McDonald, a huge Scotsman (woe betide anyone who called him jock), and who later was to become a good friend, was always immaculately dressed, pin sharp creases in his trousers and boots like mirrors. Ken also sported an impressive moustache and even though he had lived south of the border for twenty years, still had a thick Scottish accent. He became my mentor. He knew how to talk to prisoners and rarely raised his voice, but when he did the whole unit knew about it. He was a good mentor and his knowledge of different courses, how to write plans and how to get the best of the prisoners was second to none. Ken liked me as his student because I took things seriously. Some Officers wanted to be in the Sentence Planning team for an easy time away from the landings. Ken could pick these out and ensure they got nowhere near the unit.

  I had worked as a manager for M.F.I, a huge flat pack furniture retailer, and for those who didn’t know, M.F.I stood for Murray’s Furniture Industries, although we called it Made For Idiots. The shops have been closed for years now, although some relatives and friends still call upon me to put furniture together for them, thinking that I am still an expert at it, not that I ever was. I started at MFI as soon as I left the army. At that time I didn’t want to go back into uniform, and had some experience of managing people. I knew all about interviewing techniques, how to form open and closed questions, when to listen, and how to encourage ambivalent prisoners who were reluctant to join the courses.

  Ken and I got on well together; both were of similar age and both having the same interests. It was, I suppose, an idyllic time for me. As the jail was filling up, we were, getting busier in the SPUD unit. My world seemed to have come together and I seemed to have found my niche. I was doing well in the sentence planning unit, and getting noticed for my positive attitude and good work ethics.

  All good things come to an end and mine did – abruptly. The SPUD unit was separated by a wall from the segregation unit, known in various guises as the seg, the block, the chokie and probably many more names. When I left, the name had been changed again from Segregation Unit to the Separation and Care Unit. Whatever next? The Teddy Bear Suite, perhaps?

  It was designed as a punishment unit for those prisoners who were charged with breaking prison rules. There are hundreds prison rules, but most prisoners were there for violence; fighting, assaulting staff, smashing up their cells and many other offences that involve being a twat. We were soon “drafted” in from the SPUD unit, as the segregation became full to bursting.

  What the Governor hadn’t planned for was that establishments around the country, seeing a new dispersal unit being opened, would offload their most dangerous and manipulative arseholes from their own prisons onto us. One could only imagine the chaos this caused; a jail full of new Officers, newly promoted Senior and Principal Officers, and a newly formed Senior Management Team. It truly was an “idiots running the asylum” situation.

  Officers were getting battered left right and centre, disorder, cell fires; prisoner refusals to bang up or return to their cells were common. No one knew what time they were getting home. Shift systems were out of the window. You stayed until every last man was safely locked away. That is still the case today, whatever jail you work in; no one leaves the jail during a serious incident until it is resolved.

  Me and Ken, who was now a Senior Officer, were quickly used as back-up Officers in the segregation unit. The house blocks couldn’t afford to supply staff. They were having enough troubles of their own. The SPUD unit was temporarily closed to help give the segregation a hand with the amount of prisoners being sent there.

  It was there I got my first taste of real violence.

  When you go into an incident, it is normally planned “control and restraint” (C&R) and in teams of four – one for the head (the Officer normally in charge of the team), one Officer for each arm, and one for the legs. I was in a team dressed up, as we all were, in riot gear (helmets, gloves, boiler suits, shin pads and thick gloves) along with Ken. John came with me from Norwich and was picked as a “segregation screw” because he was an ex-copper and knew how to handle violent people, but also because he was built like a brick shithouse. Jules was picked for the segregation because, well, because she was, Jules, and nobody EVER argued with Jules. And there was Tiny Tim, so called because he blocked the sun out with his massive bulk. He wa
s also the segregation Senior Officer, so although he wasn’t part of our team, he was the last Officer to speak to the offending prisoner to make him see sense. It worked most of the time, before sending the team in. All the names have been changed in this book, but the characters remain the same, so those people I’ve worked with know who they are.

  On this occasion, the prisoner was having none of it and was up for a fight. He was a big lad, who had little space on his body left for any more tattoos. Shaven headed, and naked, he had also covered himself in baby oil. He knew that it was harder to get a grip on him, so making it more difficult for us especially dressed in riot gear.

  We advanced upon him in formation, John at the front, me to his left flank, Ken to his right, and Jules to the rear as “leg man”. She wanted to be at the back so she could “rip his bollocks off”, as she so eloquently put it.

  The con, being in this situation many times before, knew what was coming and tried to make a run for it. John, having dealt with him before, knew which way he was going and jumped him before he could get any further. John had left the Police service because of his habit of being a bit heavy handed with Joe Public; it was either resign or get sacked and he was in his element here. It took a split-second before, me Ken, and Jules was upon the prisoner. We were writhing around the floor with him, sweating and shouting, trying to get locks on this slippery customer.

  Fucking give it up, you bastard! Get his legs Jules, Ken, pin that arm down! Ray, for fuck’s sakes, get a lock on that wrist, Tiny was shouting. I got booted punched, head butted, spat at, you name it, I got it, we all did; sometimes from your own, but that’s what happens when you’re dealing with such violence. There are never any hard feelings afterwards.