My prison warder father would get it

My prison warder father would get it

By Vicki Woods
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/09/2007

I was quite charmed by the pictures of the striking prison officers standing in disciplined crowds outside the nation's prison gates. Nice bit of unaccustomed sunshine they had for their day out. I was also rather admiring of Clive Moses, the head of the Prison Officers' Association, for his surgical planning and ingenious execution of the strike. Also for the way he easily beat off every single representative of the broadcast media who was shouting at him: You're breaking the law, aren't you? Yes, you are, it's an unlawful strike and you're breaking the law. "I keep the law," he said composedly. "I am a prison officer of 20 years' standing."

I was neither charmed nor impressed by Gordon Brown's response to the wildcat strike: he put his bad-smell-under-the-nose face on and he did not mention the words "prison" or "officers". He just droned on about discipline and control of Our Strong Economy. He said that public sector pay must be disciplined so that we (he always means "he" when he says "we") can continue to control inflation. I understand his bad-smell face (though I don't excuse it). Nobody likes prisons. It's very easy for the law-abiding citizen to go blithely through life without ever thinking about prisons or prisoners or prison officers.

I do occasionally, because we had a prison officer in the family once. Very briefly. My father was a career soldier, a very happy sergeant in the RASC, who rejoined the Army after the war because he "couldn't take to" civvy life. He liked routine and he liked working in a fixed male hierarchy.

My mother, on the other hand, "couldn't take to" hauling her children around the Empire in troop-transporters, so in 1960 she made him leave. She rejected his plea to join the Hong Kong Police (which he'd have loved) and I think it was she who suggested he train for the Prison Service.

He did his rookie training at Wakefield and was then posted to Pentonville, which meant he didn't come home a lot. (Best thing all round, really.) One day he turned up in civvy clothes, carrying a suitcase and said he'd left because he didn't like locking 'em up every night. My mother went off to have one of her headaches and I spent the next three days trying to find out whether he'd jumped or been pushed.

He said the governor had suggested that he just "wasn't cut out" for being a prison officer. Why? "Because I was too chatty with the inmates." Were the warders not supposed to talk to the inmates? He said: "Erm, ah, um, they don't like you to get too friendly with them." Who was he too friendly with?

In dribs and drabs, he said that one of the people he'd locked up every night was Alfie Hinds. Hinds was a notorious figure in the 1960s, the great escaper, the Houdini of HMPs. Aged seven, he'd escaped from a children's home, then from Borstal, then from a police cell at the Old Bailey. He was sent down for 12 years for a robbery at Maples department store in London, and escaped to Belfast from HMP Nottingham. Another 12-year stretch followed for car-smuggling across the Irish border. So there he was in Pentonville, on my dad's wing.

Hinds was one of those classically perfect English criminals, an inoffensive-looking little man with a neat moustache, tidy hair and pebble-glasses. He didn't look anything like his tabloid nicknames: Houdini, the Locksmith, Jailbreaker Extraordinary. He looked like a clerk with claustrophobia: he just didn't like being locked in, my pa said. "I only slipped him the odd packet of Players now and again."

Right, I see. You've been sacked! For collaboration! He said: "I told the governor I know how he feels, I'm a smoker myself." Doh! And he sacked you! Damn right, too.

These days, of course, my pa would no doubt be turning a blind eye to young pop stars' pleas for the odd packet of crack. He's been dead a while, so I never got the opportunity to ask him what he thought about your modern, New Labour prison system. I don't think much of it myself, which is why I feel a whisker of sympathy for the prison officers.

The Prison Service has been told to cut £60 million from its £2.2 billion budget in 2007-2008. This at a time of record prison numbers. Though prisons are awash with drugs, there are plans ahead to scale back the current drug-testing programme in order to save money. Staffing levels have been cut in order to save money, and may be further lowered, in order to save money.

Daily cell checks on any latterday Alfie Hindses who might be squirrelling away weapons or rope ladders are being stopped, in order to save money.

Prisoners will be locked up for longer periods (including the afternoons, which is when they get to do a bit of "rehabilitation", ie take part in classes and skills workshops), in order to save money. But the reality at the moment is that because the prison population is so high, the amount of "rehabilitation" any prisoner gets is already diluted beyond usefulness.

Meantime, prison governors are no longer allowed to run their own prisons, which appear to be run by Jack Straw via the EU. Prison governors are not allowed to manage sentences in regard to time off for good behaviour nowadays. Prison officers, much reduced in numbers, are forever being given silly new things to do, such as knocking on cell doors before opening them and wearing polo shirts instead of uniforms, so as not to look threatening.

If I were a prison officer, I'd have joined the strike as well. Be looking forward to the next one, too.

And from the Independent:

1 September 2007 11:19

Prison officers rule out more strikes

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
Published: 01 September 2007

Several hours of talks failed to end the dispute over prison pay, but officers have ruled out further strikes before they meet the Government again in two weeks.

Leaders of the Prison Officers Association (POA) met Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, in London yesterday, two days after a wildcat strike in jails across England and Wales over the Government's decision to pay a 2.5 per cent wage increase in two stages.

In a joint statement, the two sides said: "We have had some hours of constructive discussions. We will be meeting again in two weeks' time. The Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, emphasised to the POA that there can be no change in this year's pay settlement. The POA told him that they had no intention of further industrial action at this time but would continue to seek a resolution to the dispute."

Colin Moses, the POA chairman, said: "We have not got more money today, but that is not to say there will not be more money in future. We expect further negotiations and we will continue to press for a fair award for our members."

The talks came as the Government admitted that its plans to create an extra 9,500 prison places by 2012 might not solve the jail overcrowding crisis. In the worst case scenario, officials warned ministers that the England and Wales prison population, currently at a record of just under 81,000, could reach nearly 102,000 by 2014. The lowest figure is estimated at 88,000.

The figures show that even on the medium projection, the Government would be almost 5,000 places short by 2014. The Ministry of Justice said that the scenarios were not precise forecasts. It said the three scenarios are considered "equally likely".

The Government announced that criminals released early because of the overcrowding had committed a further 48 offences since the controversial scheme was introduced.

Nick Herbert, the shadow Justice Secretary, said: "Early release is further undermining public confidence in the criminal justice system. It must be halted immediately and emergency secure accommodation provided".

BBC: Analysis: Prison challenges ahead