The Criminal Alphabet (20 page)

See
Spin

To be
dubbed up
, a phrase of Scottish origin, is to be locked in a prison cell, as in ‘Aye, I was dubbed up for three days in the
Bar L
'.

See
Bar L
,
Jockney

Duff
is a military word for any dessert, but usually it's a steamed pudding. It's become a common word in prisons to describe dessert, as in ‘I'll give you five roll-ups if you give me your duff for the next week'. Real duff – that is, steamed pudding with treacle or raisins – is highly prized in prison, as it is one of the few things most prisoners like to eat. ‘Duff' can also mean to beat up, as in ‘I duffed him right up'.

An
earwig
is someone who listens to other people's conversations, which, in the paranoid and secretive world of crime and prison, can be dangerous for all concerned. Unlike in the world of the straight-goer, where you might suffer a dirty look for earwigging on people, in jail this behaviour can quickly develop into violence.

Do say: ‘I'm not interested in your conversation.'

Don't say: ‘Can you speak up? I'm trying to record you.'

See
Busy
,
Sweetgrass

Within the first month of your sentence,
you will be given a slip of paper with your
EDR
marked on it. EDR stands for Earliest Date of Release, and this is the date on which you will leave prison, barring any unforeseen circumstances, such as being granted early parole or losing remission.

E men
are prisoners who have escaped from custody, or attempted to escape or have conspired to escape from police, court or prison custody. To make these prisoners highly visible to the authorities they have to wear
banana suits
, brightly coloured overalls with thick yellow luminous stripes on them. They also have extra security,
such as staff escorts during their movements around the prison, and special escape-resistant cells. Their every move is recorded in a book. At night, the E man must hand over all clothing and possessions from his cell, and these are sealed in a box and kept in the wing office. E men also have to keep a red
light on in their cell throughout the night and are on a thirty-minute watch (they must be checked every half-hour throughout the night). E men, like Category A men,
have to change cells every twenty-eight days so that any attempt to tunnel out of the cell or work on bars or locks is thwarted.

See
Banana suit
,
Night clockey
,
Night light
,
On the book

The enchanted
is a sarcastic term for prisoners who are on the
Enhanced
Privilege Level of IEP (Incentives & Earned Privileges scheme) introduced by Michael
‘Something of the Night' Howard when he was Home Secretary in the early 1990s. It's a three-tier system for prisoner's privileges in which the top band, which all prisoners should aspire to, is ‘enhanced level' – this entitles them to one extra visiting order and the right to spend more of their own money in return for good behaviour.

See
Enhanced

Enhanced
is the highest level a prisoner can reach on the three-tier tier class system introduced into prisons in 1995 by then Home Secretary Michael Howard as part of his ‘austere'
prison regime. To be an enhanced prisoner, a prisoner must demonstrate model behaviour, including undertaking voluntary drug tests (which of course must test clear).

See
Basic
,
The Enchanted

ETS
(Enhanced Thinking Skills) is one of the main psychology-based Offending Behaviour Courses (OBCs)that has been introduced into the British prison system (despite failing and being scrapped in every other country in Europe) since 1990. Its aim is to teach prisoners a new way of thinking which will be less destructive than the thinking that led them into prison in the first place. Though officially a ‘voluntary' course, prisoners who do not complete the course, and/or other similar courses, are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to progressing through the system to parole and release.
At two points in the history of this course – in the mid-1990s and again in 2002 –
it was deemed unsuitable for prisoners convicted of armed robbery, as research showed it would make them better able to plan and thus able to carry out their crimes more efficiently. On both occasions, however, the prison system and psychologists backtracked and allowed armed robbers to take the course, having realized that few short-term prisoners were interested in doing it.

Every prison or jail has an
exercise yard
, usually a large square of bare concrete around which prisoners are allowed to walk for a minimum of thirty minutes per day, weather permitting. The exercise yard is a bit of a misnomer, as no actual exercise is allowed on the yard, other than walking. In most prisons you're not allowed to run or jog on the yard, or play football or any other sport, so whoever came up with the idea of calling it an exercise yard can never have read a copy of the prison rules.
The yard is where a lot of deals are done for drugs and other illicit items, and
it can also be the arena in which disputes are settled. Every prisoner is given a rub-down search before being allowed on the yard – some jails even use a
wand
(metal detector) – but it's quite easy to smuggle a weapon on to the yard. The yard is also where prisoners pass on information about crime to each other. (There's little else to talk about while you're walking around in circles – flapping your tongue is the only real exercise you get.) Officially,
exercise on the yard should be cancelled only in case of ‘inclement weather', the definition of which is that the weather should be so bad as to obscure the view of the perimeter wall or fence, but in reality prison staff will cancel exercise if they feel one stiff breeze or one small raindrop. Standing in twos in the rain or cold watching a bunch of cons walking around is not their idea of fun. The old nursery rhyme ‘Here We Go round the Mulberry Bush' was written about the exercise yard at HMP Wakefield, which had a mulberry bush at its centre.These days HMP Wakefield holds more child-killers and paedophiles than any other prison in the country.

All top-security prisons have at least one
extraction team,
a bunch of screws who have been trained in removing recalcitrant prisoners from cells using surprise, speed and force. A proportion of the screws who volunteer for this job – where they can practise legally sanctioned violent techniques on prisoners while outnumbering them vastly –
have the gung-ho bully-boy mentality of gang members. It's a simple fact of life that the job of prison officer (for which you need no educational qualifications or people skills) will attract some very dubious characters. Not all prison officers are psychotic bullies,
sadists and psychopaths – there are some very decent staff working in prisons – but the reality is there are still quite a few.

See
Batter squad
,
Care bear
,
Dog screw
,
MUFTI

Fila c***s
is a prison expression for any footwear supplied to prisoners by the prison system and is usually used in connection with prison-issue plimsolls that have thick rubber soles and blue canvas uppers. It refers to the fact that the Fila brand is held in low esteem by most criminals and prisoners (they are classed as cheap and unstylish),
and it's a play on words (Fila c***s = feel a c*** (for wearing them)). Only the poorest prisoners and foreign national prisoners would be seen dead in them. The majority wear their own shoes or trainers.

See
Adidas sex-case
,
Baccy tins
,
Jack the Rippers
,
Nigerian Nikes

FTS
, or Fuck The System,
is the common cry of the prisoner, and a common way of signing off
jail mail
to others in the same position. To British prisoners, ‘the system'
is everything from straight society and the police to the courts and prison – one big mass which they believe is permanently against them, so they are constantly looking for ways to fuck them right back.

Fuckwit
is a big favourite with screws and prison management to describe prisoners who don't meet certain
educational standards, such as prisoners taking remedial education classes.

A
gate arrest
is when a serving prisoner has outstanding crimes which are discovered after his current conviction and imprisonment. The police, often without giving any prior warning,
will wait at the gate of the prison on the day of a prisoner's release and immediately arrest them. This was very common in the 1970s. The idea was to encourage criminals to ‘cough the lot' on their initial arrest and get all their crimes taken into consideration, thus clearing the books and making the police look good. Sometimes the police would ‘discover' a crime, or allegation of a crime, after the criminal had refused to clear their books, gate arrest them and ask for a remand into custody right away. This was to encourage criminals to admit everything or risk further imprisonment. The psychological effect of a gate arrest cannot be overestimated as, naturally, prisoners count off each day and make plans for their release. At least nowadays the law expects police officers to behave in a reasonable manner and visit the prisoner beforehand to lay the charges and get a response before setting up a gate arrest.

Gate fever
is a disease some prisoners are prone to when they reach the end of a prison sentence. They become so intoxicated by the thought of freedom that they start to behave recklessly. Sometimes prisoners with gate fever will piss off prisoners who still have a while left to serve, which is never a good thing and can lead to trouble.
It's
considered bad form to rub your good fortune in the face of a largely violent and emotionally unstable community.

Being
ghosted
means being transferred to another prison suddenly and without notice. This can happen to any prisoner at any time and for a variety of reasons. For example, if the prison authorities suspect that a prisoner might be planning something – an escape, a protest, a riot, etc. – then they will be ghosted. Even being a ‘bit of a nuisance'
is enough to do it. It's called being ghosted because the prisoner will just disappear: one minute they can be walking down a prison landing and the next they have been bundled on to a prison transport and are heading for a prison unknown. The idea behind it is to disorient the prisoner and keep them away from any contacts,
inside or out of prison, who might be able to help by launching a legal challenge.
The prisoner quite often will end up on the ‘ghost train', being endlessly transferred from prison to prison.

Gladiator school
is the name given to juvenile jails, where violence is an everyday occurrence. The
borstal
system was particularly violent, as young criminals fought to prove themselves and build a reputation.

The Greybar Hotel
is an American term for prison which is sometimes used in the UK, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. A lot of British cons call their prisons hotels, in a sarcastic way, of course. If you compared British prisons to hotels
you would be looking at the Bates Motel from
Psycho
or
Fawlty Towers
.
Check into the Greybar Hotel and you will definitely need a holiday to get over it!

The
guv'nor's shuffle
is the walk from a cell in the punishment block to the
adjudication
room, where the prisoner will be tried for any breach of prison rules or regulations. It's called the shuffle because the prisoner has to wear prison-issue slippers which are usually two or three sizes too big for them, and they will have a screw holding on to each elbow. This is to make sure no harm comes to the governor:
the slippers and screws will hamper your movements, should you try to attack him.

If someone tells you they are in for
hairy
, you can safely assume that person has been convicted of rape (rhyming slang: hairy ape = rape). In prison, those convicted, or even charged and awaiting trial, for a bit of hairy will be in danger of being seriously assaulted by their fellow prisoners, who will not tolerate sex offenders of any kind living among them. Those in prison for hairy often have to seek protection on
VP
(Vulnerable Prisoner) wings.

A
handful
is a five-year prison sentence, for reasons that should be clear enough. It can also mean a fearsome fighter or troublemaker, someone so big or violent you would have to use a weapon to subdue him. For example, Charlie Bronson is definitely a handful: as would any man be who
can get to the roof of Broadmoor once, let alone three times.

To
hang one up
is the first step in starting a
dirty protest
: it is smearing the walls of your cell with your own shit. A small percentage of prisoners will be willing enough, or frightened enough, to hang one up. Some prisoners do it as a way of protesting against the prison system, or in order to try to blackmail the system into giving them something they want, but some also do it because it can protect them from a beating from the screws. Once a prisoner is covered in shit, it would take a screw with a stomach of iron to grab hold of him and give him some stick.