Heaven: A Prison Diary (34 page)

I had to smile
because I know one or two officers who’d still like to.

The
director-general, Martin Narey, has issued a directive requiring all prison
officers to address inmates with the prefix Mr. When an officer bellows across
the car park, ‘Get your fuckin’ arse over here, Archer,’ I courteously point
out to her that she must have missed the director-general’s missive.

‘I don’t give a
fuck about the director-general,’ she replies, ‘I’ll fuckin’ well call you what
I like.’

One prisoner
found an unusual way around this problem a few years ago. He changed his name
by deed poll to Mister Rogers, but then he did have a twenty-year sentence.

If you work
outside the prison, you can earn up to £300 a week, which allows you to send
money back to your wife, partner and family, which you certainly can’t do on
the amount you are paid working inside. An added bonus is that some companies
offer full-time work on release to any prisoner who has proved himself while in
their employ.

Once you’re
qualified to work outside, you must first complete a month of CSV

(Community Service
Volunteer) work, partly as retribution, and also to prove you are both fit and
safe to work in the community. Once this has been completed, you can then spend
the rest of your sentence working outside, so that when you’re released, in the
best scenario, it’s a seamless progression.
In the worst …

Mike was only a
few weeks away from that seamless progression when two prison officers turned
up at his place of work, and accompanied him back to NSC. It seems that a young
lady who worked at the same factory could do nothing to deter his unrequited
advances. Her mother also worked there, and reported him to the management. The
management, quite rightly, were not willing to condemn the prisoner simply on
the mother’s word, and carried out their own investigation. A few days later
they sent a full report to the prison governor.

Mike has
subsequently been shipped out of NSC back to Lincoln Prison, a tough B-cat.

He was only a
few weeks away from parole, and the factory had already offered him a full-time
job on release. He has now lost his D-cat status, lost his job, lost his income
and possibly lost any chance of parole.

I am reminded
of Robin Williams’s classic remark: ‘God gave man a penis and a brain, but not
enough blood to work both at the same time.’

Few prisoners
turn down the opportunity to have weekly visits, or the chance to be tagged and
released two months early. Gary is the rare exception.

Gary was
sentenced to two years for theft of a motor vehicle (BMW), and because of good
behaviour will only serve twelve months. But why does no one visit him, and why
won’t he take up his two-month tagging option and serve only ten months?

None of Gary’s
family or friends knows that he is in prison. His mother believes that he is working
with his friend Dave on
a
oneyear contract on an oil
rig in Mexican waters.

When he arrived
in Mexico, Dave sent Gary a large selection of Mexican scenic postcards.

Gary pens a
weekly card to his mother, sends it back to his friend Dave in Mexico, who then
stamps it and forwards the missive to England.

Gary will be
released next week, and seems to have got away with his little subterfuge,
because Dave will fly back from Mexico on the same day, when they will meet up
at Heathrow and return to Wolverhampton together. During the journey, Dave will
brief Gary on what it’s like to work and live on a Mexican oil rig.

Now that’s what
I call a friend.

North Sea Camp
has five doctors who work a rota, and one of them, Dr Harris, is also
responsible for the misuse of substances unit in Boston. Dr Harris arrives at
the hospital today, accompanied by a male nurse. Nigel, who is in his early
thirties and is dressed in a black T-shirt, blue jeans, with a ring in his ear,
has come to visit me because he is currently working with young people aged
twelve to nineteen who have a heroin problem. I can see why they would feel at
ease with him.

Nigel explains
that he can only work with youngsters who want to work with him. He listens to
their questions, offers answers, but never judges. They’ve had enough of their
parents telling them to grow up, behave themselves and find a job. He outlines
the bare statistics – they are terrifying.

There are
currently 220,000 heroin addicts in Britain, of which only 3,000 (11 per cent)
are involved in some form of detox programme. One of the problems, Nigel
explains, is that if you apply to your local GP for a place on one of these
programmes, the wait can be anything up to six weeks, by which time ‘the
client’ has often given up trying to come off the drug. The irony is that if
you end up in prison, you will be put on a detox programme the following day.
Nigel knows of several addicts who commit a crime hoping to be sent to jail so
that they can wean themselves off drugs. Nigel works directly with a small
group of seven addicts, although he reminds me, ‘You can’t save anyone; you can
only help those who want to help themselves.’

He then guides
me through the problems the young are facing today. They start experimenting
with cannabis or sniffing solvents, then progress to ecstasy and cocaine,
followed by crack cocaine, ending up on heroin.

He knows
several seventeen year olds who have experienced the full gamut. He adds
ruefully that if the letter of the law were adhered to, seven million Britons
would be in jail for smoking cannabis, as possession currently has a two-year
tariff. A gramme of an A-class drug costs about £40. This explains the massive
rise in street crime over the past decade, especially among the young.

The danger is
not just the drugs, but also the needles. Often, drug users live in communes
and share the same needles. This is the group that ends up with HIV and
hepatitis B and C.

Today, for
example, Nigel has appointments with two girls addicted to heroin, one aged
nineteen and the other seventeen, who both want to begin a detox programme. His
biggest problem is their boyfriends, who are not only responsible for them
being on drugs in the first place, but are also their suppliers, so the last
thing they want is for their girlfriends to be cured of the craving. Nigel
tells me that there is only a 50-50 chance they will even turn up for the
appointment. And if they do, addicts on average make seven attempts to come off
heroin before they succeed.

Nigel’s
responsibility is to refer his cases to a specialist GP so that they can be
registered for a detox programme. He fears that too many addicts go directly to
their own GP, who often prescribes the wrong remedy to cure them.

Nigel displays
no cynicism as he takes me through a typical day in his life, and reminds me
that he’s not officially
funded,
something he hopes
the NHS will sort out in the near future. He suddenly brings the problem down
to a local level, highlighting the national malaise. Nigel has seven heroin
addicts on his books, in a county that has 10,000 on the drug. It’s not a chip,
not a dent, not even a scratch, on the overall surface.

Nigel leaves me
to keep his appointment with a seventeen-year-old boy who has, for the past
four years, been visiting caravan sites so that he can feed his addiction; he
cuts the rubber hose and sniffs calor gas.

He’s not even
breaking the law, other than by damaging property.

Gail is
searching for a bed-board for a new inmate with a back problem. There are
twelve boards out there somewhere. The problem is that once you’ve allocated
them, you never get them back, because when an inmate is released, the last
thing on his mind is returning a bed-board.

Gail calls the
south block unit, only to discover that a replacement officer from Lincoln is
holding the fort. She throws her hands in the air in despair, but nevertheless
tells him about her problem. By cross-referencing with the prisoners’ files,
she can check those who are in genuine need, and those who have just come into
possession of a bedboard by default. To her surprise, the officer returns an
hour later accompanied by seven of the offending bed-boards.

I offer him a
cup of coffee and quickly discover that his whole life is equally well
organized. He tells me about work at Lincoln, and one sentence stops me in my
tracks.

‘I’ve developed
a system that ensures I only have to work five months a year.’

The officer has
been in the Prison Service for just over seven years, and has, along with five
other colleagues, developed an on-off work schedule so he only needs to be on
duty for five months a year for his £23,000 salary.

He assures me
that the system is carried out in most jails with slight variations. He would
be happy to work extra hours if he could get paid overtime, but currently few
prisons can afford the extra expense except for accompanied visits (hospitals,
court or transfer).

This is the bit
where you have to concentrate.

Officers work
the following shifts:

Shift A: the early
shift, 7.30-12.30 or Shift B: a main shift (day), 7.30-5.30.

Shift C: the
late shift, 1.30-8.30 or Shift D: the evening shift, 5.00-9.00.

Shift E: a main
shift (night), 9.00-7.00.

The officer and
his colleagues swap shifts around and, as there is no overtime, they take time
off in lieu. Every officer should work thirty-nine hours per week, but if they
swap shifts with colleagues, they can end up doing A+C or B+D or D+E, and that
way notch up nearly seventy hours per week, while another colleague takes the
week off.

Add to this the
twenty-eight days holiday entitlement per year, and they need work only five
months while taking off seven. Three of his colleagues also have part-time
jobs, ‘on the out’ and the officer assures me that a large percentage of junior
officers supplement their income this way.

I can only
assume this does not come as a surprise to Martin Narey, currently the
director-general of the Prison Service. I’m bound to say if my secretary,
housekeeper, agent, accountant, publisher or doctor took seven months per year
to do another job, I would either reorganize the system or replace them.

As from today,
the Home Office
have
recategorized NSC as a
resettlement prison. In future all prisoners having served one quarter of their
sentence and passed their FLED will be eligible to move into one of the
recently built blocks and start working outside the prison. The thinking behind
this is that by allowing prisoners to earn a living, they will be less likely
to reoffend when released. Two new blocks (Portakabins) of forty rooms have
been constructed on the playing fields near the gate for this purpose. From
today, sixty-two prisoners will be eligible to leave NSC from 7.30 am, and need
not return until 7 pm.

But, and there are
always buts in prison, Mr Berlyn has posted a notice in both new blocks, making
it clear that this is to be considered a privilege, and anyone who fails to
keep to the guidelines will be suspended and put to work on the farm at £5.60 a
week.
30

Mr Beaumont
(the governing governor) has just marched into the hospital, accompanied by Mr
Berlyn. Dr Walling, David and I are watching England play Argentina in the
World Cup, and Beckham has just scored from a penalty to put us in the lead. I
assume they had heard the cheering and popped in to find out the score.
However, they don’t even glance at the screen. One look in my
direction,
and they both stride out again.

I learn later
that the governor had received a call from Reuters asking him to confirm that I
had committed suicide.

Not while we’re
in the lead against Argentina.

An officer drops in and tells me over coffee that there is disquiet
among the officers and staff
that sex offenders will in future make up a
considerable percentage of our inmates.

Officers fear
the atmosphere may change from the relaxed state we currently enjoy to one of
constant tension, as regular offenders despise paedophiles. It is even possible
that one or two of the more violent inhabitants might take it upon themselves
to administer their own form of justice.
31

The officer
goes on to tell me that a murderer at Gartree shared a cell with a prisoner who
was allegedly in for burglary. But the lifer discovered from another prisoner,
who had been in a previous jail with his cell-mate, that he was in fact a sex
offender who had raped his nine-year-old daughter.

At roll-call
the following morning, the lifer reported to the main office. His statement was
simple and explicit. He had stabbed his cell-mate to death and left him on his
bed.

The lifer was
immediately placed in solitary confinement, charged and later given another
life sentence. The judge added that on this occasion, life meant the rest of
his life.

I umpire this
evening’s cricket match between NSC and a local school. I give the opening
batsman from the visiting side out, caught and bowled. When I see the look of
surprise on the batsman’s face, I immediately feel anxious, because the bowler
had taken the catch as he ran in front of me.

Have I made a
mistake? The batsman is already heading towards the pavilion (a small wooden
hut) when Mo (murder, terrorist), who is fielding at silly mid-on, looks at me
and says, ‘It was a bump-ball, Jeff.’ I call the opening batsman back and
apologize for my mistake as the rest of the team
applaud
Mo’s sportsmanship.