John "Ben" Gunn is no pirate, he's a lifer who can write...

Life in the Slammer

Ben Gunn highlights an overlooked part of daily prison life instinctively known to prisoners yet rarely written about.

I once had to put up with a real 'dog' of an SO. A mean-spirited, mean-faced short-arse whose first response to everything was a determined and mindless "no". We engaged in a daily battle of needling each other. I happily despised him, and I daresay he felt pretty much the same.

Until the day he got off his arse to hit the landings, and ended up being the screw to bang me up. My lock was quite a stiff one, and the door a tight fit. Every screw slammed it shut, except this SO; he managed to pull it to and lock it with hardly a sound. This small act changed the way I perceived this mean bastard.

To call a great slab of bolted hardwood or steel ‘a door’ seems to understate the weight of it. It is the very essence of imprisonment, the ever present barrier that marks the rhythm of our daily lives. There should be a more pertinent word for it, one that captures its significance more precisely.

Door will have to do for now. Its movement, the rhythm of its opening and closing, reveals the state of the specific prison. A cell door that is left open for long periods of time will be a more amenable prison. The door that is opened and closed in short, sharp bursts is one that is oppressive and fearful.

When you are able to sit in your cell, door ajar, being sociable and open to visitors, then you are in a prison that allows you some of the supportive aspects of life. When you have to wedge-up during association, you don't need me to tell you that you are in a totally messed-up nick.

While the cell door speaks loud and clear about the state of your environment, it also speaks very clearly about the nature of the screws.

When opening a cell door, the screw can unlock and move on; or unlock and throw it open. He might even throw in a few words to nudge you into some sort of movement. Which of these he chooses reveals his temperament, demonstrates his understanding. Cells are the only semblance of private space available to us; some regard them as home, in a more or less temporary sense.

Throwing open the door on unlocking destroys that pretence of privacy in a thoughtless instant. It is a deeply ignorant act that screws dealing with long-term prisoners learn not to do on their very first day. Similarly, shouting "work" or whatever as the door opens is like saying, "you moron, even though you do the same thing every day, you need to be told what to do". Well, we really don't. We know exactly where we need to be, and being reminded of it is just annoying. The way the screw opens the door is an invariable barometer of whether he has crossed that line into being a dog. Unlock it, don't throw it open, and don't rise to any urge to shout anything. In this way you give a small sign that your imagination may stretch to imagining what it is like to live on our side of that piece of steel.

The way the door is closed also speaks to a screw’s character. Not that it is always left to them - some inmates prefer to bang themselves up; their way of depriving the system of the privilege. But when left to the screw, it can go several ways. He can stick his head in, ask if you’re done, and pull the door to without slamming it. Or he can slither along and slam your door without so much as a by-your-leave.

The chosen method is as revealing of a screw’s character as the way he opens it. Asking "all done?", or "alright?" before he closes it isn't a genuine question. The last thing he wants you to say is “no”, I've got a mission left to run first. Rather, it is a nod across the divide that separates us, a thread-like bridge between those who exist on either side of the lock. With some screws, that final exchange has even taken on the character of being absolution for what he is about to do, a recognition from one human being to another that there is something not wholly right in what must nevertheless be done. That mutual verbal dance reveals the moral character of the screw.

Which brings me back to the dog of an SO. He slid my difficult door closed almost silently; when I had fully expected him to slam it shut without a thought. He took a little extra time to do this all along the landing. He's not on my Xmas card list, but from then on I recognised that he wasn't rotten to the core. A miserable git, maybe, but he still
recognized - for a few moments - that locking a man in a concrete box needn't be done carelessly or harshly. It is a matter of importance. When you lose sight of that, you have lost a part of yourself.

• Ben Gunn is a lifer currently resident in HMP Shepton Mallet

SO is short for Senior Officer, the rank between basic grade and PO (Principal Officer).