The chattering classes

The chattering classes

By: Charles Hanson - HMP Blantyre House

Lifer Charles Hanson has some strong views on what he considers to be the liberal elite and do-gooder in prison reform.

The history of prisons, and most certainly in recent years, shows that they have become valuable sources for the professional apologist and ‘do-gooder’ careerist to demonstrate and exert his or her so-called ‘humanity’.
These self-righteous, smug and arguably guilt-ridden individuals, who one finds crawling around every nook and cranny, are usually of the privileged liberal elite and usually of a self-assumed status who will seek to exploit those incarcerated behind prison walls to further their own careers as spokesmen and spokeswomen for those who fall foul of the criminal justice system.

There is however an apparent conflict between the interests of the state and the interests of the few who seek at least by giving verbal expression to prison reform which at first appears to be transparent.

One can clear up this confusion and conflict by taking the stand that the liberal elites are the state and that there is no distinction between the objectives of either if one applies the main ingredient of both – control. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, the liberal ‘do-gooder’ will continually deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have no moral origin and no moral base.

In general, the liberal is not in conflict with the accepted morality and certainly not with the institutions of state. On the contrary, they take an accepted moral principle, adopt it as their own, and then accuse mainstream society of violating its principles. No better example is demonstrated than by the radicals of the 1960s who, in their ‘pantomime’ and immature revolutionary visions, succeeded only in challenging the status quo of the time which they are so very much part of today. They sought social change through a haze of drug-fuelled revolutionary nonsense; continually debating and arguing about the state power structures.

Today, these armchair and ‘vaudeville’ revolutionaries are likely to be found in positions of power, having swapped their sandals and love beads for business suits and briefcases; perhaps the issues were after all only about power.

The prison reform movement is but one example where liberals go when looking for a cause. Indeed we, as prisoners, are literally ‘swamped’ by those who know what is best for us although we are rarely asked what might improve the conditions of life that would reduce the likelihood of further offending behaviour.

Professional ‘do-gooders’ and so-called reformists are superficial in their quest to better the lot of those confined behind prison walls; acting as no more than a barometer and safety valve on behalf of the state from whom they derive a recognition and very often the funding to pursue their self-styled careers.

The one area in which ‘do-gooders’ are active is in the discipline of so called criminology, that relatively new fad which seeks to explain crime and punishment and is a discipline overwhelmingly dominated by the liberal elites who would argue that ‘prison doesn’t work’, that ‘punishment is out of place in a modern society’, although their ‘hare-brained schemes’ does little to satisfy victims.

They also argue that criminal behaviour is not the fault of the offender but somehow one of a host of factors depending on whether the criminologist has a background in sociology, psychology or politics, and it’s in politics that most explanations pour forth, usually from a liberal perspective.

Punishment is seen as barbaric and an act of revenge because it is held by ‘do-gooders’ to be perpetrated against victims of circumstances. There is of course no place in this thinking for the victims of crime. Moreover, there is no longer a notion that the only good act is one in which lies measurable consequence; neither does there exist a ‘just desserts’ approach to offending behaviour which in any event has little effect if the consequences to criminal behaviour is ambiguous.

Punishment, by being seen as a ‘dirty word’ (at least by the ‘do-gooder’), seems to do more to perpetuate crime than reduce it and more so where punishment is not certain and where it is often unclear and certainly not immediate.

The position of the liberal within the criminal justice system is without doubt one of influence in shaping policy, but it is a policy which for the last 40 years has failed both the offender and society and created damaging consequences for all concerned; be it the community, the victim or the offender.

As prisoners we are taught how to become ‘professional prisoners’ with plenty of rhetoric about integrating and little talk of being integrated or leaving the prison experience behind us on release, for we continue to be defined by our past and if one thinks about it the ideological probation officer perpetuates that through notions of public protection. It is also interesting to note how, in liberalising prison regimes and facilities over the past 30 years, crime rates have increased dramatically as more and more offenders return to prison and the notion of punishment is no longer clear.

In a sense I agree with Charles Bronson, who argued in Inside Time - June 2008 issue that prison is ‘soft’ compared to yesteryear and how pitiful it is today to see and hear prisoners with their in-cell TVs, computer games, access to telephones, access to private cash to make purchases at the prison canteen, the wearing of one’s own clothes, and far better visiting facilities and food than I experienced over 30 years ago whinging about the trivialities of doing time today; and it is always the minor inconveniences that seem to take on an importance in so many offender’s lives.

Unlike yesteryear, prisoners weren’t of course exposed to the damaging climate of ‘do-gooders’ or political correctness, which I hold to be so very damaging - indeed responsible for the values of the present generation and gives rise to the ‘my rights’, ‘my needs’ and ‘gimmee, gimmee, gimmee’ culture.

If social conditions are the main ingredient for offending behaviour and punishment is deemed to be ineffective, it does little to explain why the liberal elites have introduced no less than 20 Criminal Justice Bills in the past 11 years and the extension of that is rather than diminishing the use of imprisonment, it actually increases the prospect of it along with disastrous community based sentences. Are we to become a nation of prisoners or people under supervision I wonder?

Instead, the offender has become over-represented by ‘do-gooders’ who can usually be found in the endless stream of prison reform bodies and the many and various other prisoner representative groups and bodies. These people do not seek any overhaul of the criminal justice system, as they would lead us to believe, or to bring radical changes to the lives of offenders. They are quite at home denigrating, condemning and criticising the system but loathe to actually abandon their power base. Thus they remain as no more than a ‘gatekeeper’ for state domains of control.

Historically, it is not surprising to find statements about justice reflecting the ideology of the state, of law and the existing economic order. The just were always the state. The problems of justice have always been about ‘people management’ responded to in the form of well-regulated and humanitarian systems of justice under existing economic and political arrangements. They wish to improve the conditions of the ‘victim’ but not interfere with the structures which create them. Indeed, they are more likely to support all that which creates more offenders. Instead, the whole idea of furthering the interests of such people becomes a mere ‘hobbyhorse’, perhaps a ‘party-piece’ or something worthy of idle chatter at the weekly dinner party.

Prisoners, especially those in the public eye, have always held a fascination for the ‘chattering classes’. For many who have lived the life of privilege that most prisoners can only dream about, there does seem to be elements of self-flagellation that apparently offers some penance for such privilege.

The liberal elites have always been capable of ‘slumming it’, like Polly Toynbee of the Guardian newspaper who, as an experiment, lived in a council flat on the equivalent of state benefits for one week to further a research project into poverty. There is no redeeming feature in such transparent nonsense. Playing at poor is absolutely no substitute for the real thing; and Islington is not Peckham. But then the liberal has always been dramatic and over-sensitive, and that is about the best that one could expect from such types.

I often ask myself what exactly the prison reform bodies and ‘do-gooders’ actually do, what do they achieve, and what are they for? I have been present when representatives of such bodies have visited a prison and it is not the prisoner they have come to see or indeed want to see. The person of interest in any prison as far as these ‘wishy-washy’ types are concerned is not the prisoner but the Governor, with whom they can take tea and chatter about how happy the prisoner’s lot is; departing in the knowledge that they have done a good job. Of course it is one big charade. Who do they think they are kidding?

For the prisoner who maintains his or her innocence, the reform bodies are remarkably silent. Perhaps they cannot accept that their system has ‘got it wrong’. For such prisoners there remains little that is of interest to the ‘do-gooder’ whose bizarre idea of personal justice is to assist the guilty but not those who could conceivably be innocent. The concept of remorse, sympathy and empathy, which features so much in the vocabulary of the liberal elites, is of course absent in those proclaiming their innocence, but they will still attempt to arouse some sense of culpability in the ‘denier’. These ‘do-gooders’ are anyway best ignored and avoided by all prisoners be they guilty or innocent.

That conditions within prisons have changed over the past few years is without doubt, but they can in no way be thanks to ‘do-gooders’ and is more likely to be the result of actions by prisoners themselves; including prisoners resorting to litigation whilst the more desperate become involved in disturbances. In fact the liberal is often quite aghast at the temerity of prisoners when prison disturbances take place, for it confirms that the liberal experiment has failed. Strangeways, Parkhurst, Whitemoor, the Learmont and Woolf reports followed by the numerous prisoner judicial challenges, especially at the European Court of Human Rights, have all helped to change policy and improve conditions.

Whilst the liberal and ‘do-gooder’ arranges tedious and numerous self-serving conferences and seminars, where even more theories on crime and its responses are propagated, the prisoner carries on regardless; quite unaffected by the rhetoric and nonsense which certainly is not designed to improve his lot or that of his future and what more can we expect but that?