INSIDE (One Man's Experience of Prison) A True Story

by John Hoskison

  I found it all very depressing, but at least it provided plenty of material for my journalists course. In August the early release of prisoners was a well-publicised event, and although it turned out to be a major cock-up, it gave me something to write about while I took refuge in my cell.

  PRISONERS REACT AS HOME SECRETARY STEPS IN

  (Journalist Course Lesson 14)

  Chaos reigned in HMP Coldingley over the weekend when the expected release of prisoners was suspended by the Home Secretary Michael Howard.

  Notice boards explaining the new way sentences are to be calculated were torn down and prison officers who had all but lost control had no option but to close off all wings in an attempt to split mob rule.

  The previous week over five hundred inmates nationwide were released early, due to the new interpretation of the way time spent on remand is taken into account. Richard Tilt, head of the prison service and responsible for the new rules, was away on holiday in Italy.

  On the advice of the prison service, many inmates had informed families of their imminent release, but hope turned to bitterness with the news that this week the courts would halt proceedings.

  Tony Simmons, head of the prison union responsible for 27,000 officers, said, "Right or wrong, the way it was handled caused total confusion and has put my members in the front line of violence."

  HMP Coldingley, a "C" category prison, holds many dangerous criminals, and the governor agrees that the situation has been handled badly. "When inmates who have a year left to serve are told to expect release, only to have the decision overturned, no matter how many anger management courses they've attended, they're liable to react."

  Two prisoners have already received treatment in the medical centre but it is hoped that control is soon re-established.

  Tom Parker, a senior officer on "A" wing, said: "I feel sorry for some of them, but this is not the way to carry on—many will be spending even more time inside after this."

  Any vestige of hope that crystal healing might work disappeared that weekend when Paul returned to the wing, after "losing it" downstairs. He had been led to expect early release, and when he was then told he still had a year to serve, he was understandably upset. In the medical centre, crystals were placed on his shoulders to absorb his violent thoughts, but when he got back upstairs, he smashed up half the landing. That weekend Adrian's Stress Clinic took the test but failed.

  Throughout the summer months I continued to train but had to concentrate on upper body strength as my hip made it too painful to run. In my spare time, I worked at producing articles for my journalists course. I began to find getting my ideas down on paper very therapeutic. At the end of long evenings, as before, I would lie on my bed and let my mind go back to the past. I was getting closer to facing up to what had happened, and could now sift through nearly all the wreckage that lay deep inside me, but bringing it to the surface still seemed a long way off.

  Occasionally, the guys on my spur would wander into my cell to see what I was up to, but in the main they left me alone. Fortunately Paul had not suffered too badly from his fit of temper and remained on the spur. I hadn't realised how powerful he and Eric (the landing leader) were until they hurled the cupboard from the top landing. One day a heroin addict was walking along our spur, hoping to borrow some "burn". I thought he was going to follow the cupboard. Eric and the "magnificent seven" kept the incoming tide of heroin at bay with a determination that would have had King Canute gasping for breath.

  The weeks drifted by, a mass of blurred days, and I often found myself having to think what month we were in. Without any regular input of information from papers and television, I tended to lose my bearings.

  My feelings of loneliness and isolation were exacerbated when I saw other prisoners welcoming new inmates to the jail. If they didn't know them personally, they often came from the same background or even the same street. It's a lot easier to survive prison when you are surrounded by people you can relate to.

  Summer brought stale heat and boredom; weekdays were painful to get through. What made life acceptable were the weekends, in particular Saturday evenings, because Saturday evening was my night on the tiles.

  It was one of the benefits of being "in" with the "lifers". Votes had been cast before I was invited to join the group, but once accepted, we gathered every week like a secret society and headed for the chapel. It was our safe haven, the only place in the prison not affected by weekend drug and hooch orgies. Every week, it was the same routine, the same programmes we watched on television. Oh yes, Cilla Black's Blind Date is about as good as it gets in prison.

  "I'm going for a smoke," Geoff said.

  "Me, too," I said, joining him. I couldn't stand the show at home, couldn't stand it in prison either—all those cringing lines. But compulsive? Not half! We stood outside pretending not to listen. It was the one thing I allowed myself to hide from.

  "He's got to pick number one—fuckin' 'ell, she's a cracker," said Tommy, his comments drifting out to us.

  "No! Number two's much better," said Mike.

  "Half-ounce he'll pick number one," said Steve, who always ran a book.

  Our own seats, coffee and biscuits—but it was the camaraderie that really made the nights. When the commercial breaks came I would hear stories of the old days—of gangs and bank jobs, trials and "hit men". Most of the guys had spent over fifteen years inside and had seen little television in that time. Having recently been in the modern world, I was a great source of information.

  "Do they still have red telephone boxes?"—a typical question.

  The adverts with all the modern computer graphics totally blew their minds. When hair grew quickly, or cars fell off buildings and stopped before hitting the ground, they watched open-mouthed. "How the fuck do they do that?"

  We laughed, clapped, cheered and argued our way through like a bunch of kids, and those two hours, each week, became the highlight of my life inside.

  * * *

  It was a good job I had something to smile about. The increase in violence over the summer period had left me gasping with horror. Apparently it's a seasonal phenomenon in prison. As the heat rises in the poorly ventilated cells, so do tempers, particularly after the weekend "hooch" binge when trails of blood can be found all over the jail. One week one hundred and twenty gallons of the "brew" were found fermenting in the kitchen.

  And it was not just the level of violence that rose according to the season. When Ramadan, the Moslem daylight fasting period, came round, the number of practising Moslems in the prison increased by a thousand per cent. A goody-bag of food was handed out for night-time consumption to all believers, and from nowhere all these prayer mats appeared.

  The Roman Catholics also experienced a rise in attendance. When the priest changed the time of the Sunday service from morning to night—when "C" wing were locked up—suddenly the chapel was inundated with inmates who, desperate to avoid the early "bang up", had obtained permission to attend the service. True, all the candles were taken by the heroin users, but at least the numbers looked good. As summer came to an end, spirituality was really on the increase.

  Symbolically, as the days started to draw in, so my chances of being transferred to a less secure environment diminished. In September, seven months after I had been interviewed by a visiting officer from Latchmere House, a jail in Richmond which allowed inmates out into the community to work, I was given a "knock back". Initially I had been promised a place in April. Then it was May. When my third transfer date was rescheduled, I started to suspect that something was wrong, but after voicing my reservations to the governor at Coldingley, who had suggested the move, I remained full of hope. Little did I know that the eligibility rules had changed and I was no longer on the list. (Thanks for telling me, guys.)

  It was an article in the press that had crushed my chances of a move. An incident had occurred in Latchmere House that had caught the imagination of the tabloids. A "lifer" had been caught on camera innocently
standing in a bus queue when on his way to work. He was standing next to a woman whom the press then interviewed. They explained to her that the man was a "lifer" and then asked her how she felt—a somewhat loaded question. Overnight, Latchmere House became Michael Howard's least favourite institution.

  Slowly the knife was being turned on any institution that offered hope. Plans were proposed to cut the number of "open" prisons from twenty-two to six, and to dispense with many outside rehabilitation programmes. Latchmere was particularly hard hit. Yet inmates who have spent maybe ten years in jail desperately need to experience at least a "taste" of the outside world before they are released. Without some form of transitional period between incarceration and freedom, long-term prisoners are often scared witless about getting out and, in many cases, are only too happy to return to the safety of jail. It must be like coming up from the bottom of the sea without stopping on the way. A diver gets the bends—inmates overdose on space.

  As for me, I wasted hours of anguish waiting to hear about a transfer to Latchmere. In the end, I never did manage to get out of a "C" cat prison. Like many others I was simply exposed to more and more of the criminal mind. I was lucky though: I had a caring family and friends to go back to. Most didn't.

  * * *

  Throughout summer I kept my emotional batteries topped up by phoning Ben and Bronya. Ben was due to start a new year at school, and I hoped there would be some sort of organised sport. Bronya battled away at work, coped with life at home, and visited me every week. God knows how she survived, standing outside, waiting in the long queues each week, only to be treated like a criminal herself by some of the reception officers. But she still kept coming and, more than anything else, her regular visits helped me to survive. Like other visitors she was searched more thoroughly after a gun and ammunition were found in the grounds, but cuts in staff and a huge increase in the prison population made it inevitable that one day security would be breached. Anyway, according to Paul, it was only a "peashooter". No self-respecting blagger would be seen dead with such a puny weapon.

  Another, major problem was the amount of drugs pouring into the prison. I simply couldn't see why the authorities didn't do something about it. Anyone who says that it's impossible to stop drugs getting into prison is adopting an extremely apathetic stance. Of course it's difficult—but it is possible.

  It needs only discipline, limited funds, and determination, to stop "importing" in its tracks. A sniffer dog allocated to every prison would make an enormous difference, but even that's too expensive (though the £120,000 given to the whackos in the Stress Clinic was presumably not). Seeing drugs in daily use and the effect that they had on those around me, I couldn't help but feel strongly about the issue. Everybody agreed how deplorable they were, yet no one did a thing to stop them being imported.

  * * *

  Apart from standing on my soap-box and banging my drum to some of the officers about the evils of heroin (yes—that was brave), I survived the summer pretty well. I hadn't hidden from much and I could feel myself almost jockeying for position to unload my problems. I saw a lot of Mike Hart, and he continued to try to persuade me to give my testimony on the Youth Project. But I still held back—I couldn't quite commit myself. Then, one day, something happened that forced the issue.

  It was Wednesday night and I went to the chapel for the Christian fellowship. The meetings took place every Wednesday and were open to all, irrespective of belief. That night about thirty of us sat round to watch a slide-show given by Harold, a landscape gardener and occasional prison visitor. It was a good show, hardly exciting, but some of the long-term prisoners hadn't seen many flowers during their twenty-odd years inside and it made a pleasant change from the drab uniformity of prison. On the downside, it was a sad reminder of what we were missing.

  After the lecture we had coffee, which I helped serve, and it was during those twenty minutes that I came across Thompson. He was standing on the edge of the group, looking very timid, and he immediately struck a chord in me. He was small and thin, he even looked a bit like me—just younger, without the greying hair. I wandered across to offer him coffee.

  "Like one?" I asked, but he shook his head. He was very pale. "Are you OK?" I persisted, concerned.

  "Yes," he said quietly. He looked like a lemur with those huge staring eyes and I guessed he had recently come from somewhere like Wandsworth. He was a classic example of a young man who had no idea what prison was like. Although he looked pretty forlorn, so did many others in the prison, and with an encouraging smile I moved off to serve others.

  After the meeting he went back to his cell like the rest of us, but once he was alone, he passed the point so many get near, but few cross. At the end of his tether, he broke up a disposable razor, took out the blade and, in an attempt to end the torment, slashed both wrists. Two hours after leaving the meeting he lay dying in his cell.

  * * *

  No one had known that he was being bullied at work, or that his Mum was ill. Normally, inside probation would have picked it up, but they were no longer there, and the landings were no place if you had problems. It was only through a quirk of fate that an officer happened to look through Thompson's peephole and spotted the blood. After an emergency dash to hospital they managed to save him.

  I was told the next morning, when the metal shop needed to fill a vacancy. I realised that I must have been one of the last people to talk to him, but I had been unaware that he was so close to the edge. It left me shattered. For two weeks I walked around trying to understand how I seemed to be coping, asking myself why I never suspected the depths of his turmoil, but at the same time wondering whether my turn was only round the corner. Had I been younger, I don't think I could have coped.

  * * *

  One morning, in mid-September, I was sitting in the deserted chapel area waiting for the vicar to turn up, when the door below opened and an officer came upstairs.

  "Is the vicar around?" he asked.

  "No, not yet—can I help?"

  He hesitated. "Someone from the block's being transferred; wants to pray in the chapel."

  "Who?" I asked.

  He knew me well enough to answer. "Thompson."

  "Thompson!" I said, aghast. "I thought he'd already been transferred."

  "No prison would have him—he's been here since he came back from hospital. No one wants a suicide risk—he needs watching all day."

  "How is he?" I asked, concerned.

  "Bit of a mess. His mum's just died of cancer. I'll go and get him."

  For two weeks I had thought about Thompson, hoping he was managing to cope, only to find he had been sleeping within yards of us, suffering his problems alone. I wanted to disappear. I'd never witnessed so much pain—I was scared.

  A few minutes later the door opened and I heard footsteps on the stairs. When they arrived at the top the officer went to unlock and check the chapel, and I was left looking at the young man. His hair was lank and his eyes bloodshot. His face was deathly pale, his body slumped forward devoid of tension—it screamed capitulation. I had always thought myself a good motivator, but as I looked at the figure before me, at the two plaster casts on his wrists covering his wounds, I was dwarfed by hopelessness.

  "Where are they sending you?" I asked, trying to force a sympathetic smile. He looked at me and I could see his bottom lip start to tremble.

  "They mentioned Broadmoor... the hospital unit," he said, his voice quavering.

  There was nothing I could say, no last-minute tactics, no advice. He was crossing into territory I just couldn't imagine. We both knew it was the end of the line.

  "I've... come... to... pray," he said. "Will... you... pray... for... me?"

  I was trying to keep my composure. "I'll pray very hard for you," I said. "People care, you know."

  He stood rocking gently back and forth and then he started to cry. I couldn't speak—I stepped forward and hugged him, trying to convey sympathy. My instinct told me that he needed comfort, and I h
eld him, trying to pour some hope into his empty shell.

  For twenty minutes I knelt with him in the chapel. His plastered wrists kept slipping off the edge of the pew, and eventually he let his forehead sink to the wood, his hands gripped between his thighs as if in a position of execution. His tears dripped onto the floor, his breathing was racked with sobs.

  The officer came down the aisle and I watched as he gently put his hand on Thompson's shoulder. "Time to go," he said.

  I looked at Thompson for the last time. I didn't know what to say, but threw everything into two words: "Take care," I said.

  * * *

  I found Mike Hart waiting for me outside. "OK?" he asked.

  I wiped my eyes; I couldn't answer.

  "John, come onto the Youth Project. Stop people like Thompson coming in here. If he'd been warned what it's like..."

  I thought of the young, wretched man. "OK," I agreed.

  Chapter 18

  The Youth Project

  ~~

  Coming face to face with Thompson in the chapel had a lasting effect on me. For him prison was the very worst nightmare. Being subjected to bullying and then hearing those devastating words from the chaplain, "I'm sorry but I have some bad news for you," had been more than he could cope with. I realised I'd been lucky to survive unscathed so far. And it was luck. Had I found myself in the wrong cell in Wandsworth, with inmates less supportive than Guido, or had something devastating happened at home, it's possible that I would have crumbled in the same way.

  I was determined to make my testimony in public, for my own sake, but also to speak to others about the realities of prison, in the hope of making one or two change the direction in which they were heading.