Beware of retribution

Beware of retribution

JOHN BOWDEN - HMP GLENOCHIL

I thought it important to warn prisoners who
contribute with articles to the media that are
critical and disparaging of the prison system
that a real possibility exists of retribution from
the authorities in the form of adverse parole
reports and denial of release.

In July, a month before a critically important
Parole hearing to determine my suitability for
release after 28 years of imprisonment, I was
issued with a dossier of reports that were to
be submitted to the Board for consideration.
Included was a report from the prison’s
Intelligence Management Unit, which stated that
its purpose was to provide a summary of intelligence
records held on me that were relevant
to risk. Usually this file will contain information
about behaviour or activity considered prejudicial
to prison security and discipline. This information
can and often does have a direct and critical
impact on Parole decisions, sentence management
and security categorization.

In my case the report listed that ‘Prisoner
Bowden had an article published in the August
2008 issue of Inside Time’ [Letters page 5]. Apart from completely
misinterpreting the content of the article in
question, the IMU report also implied that
Inside Time had been used as a vehicle to
disseminate material deliberately intended to
ferment unrest and disturbances within prisons.
More ominously, by equating articles critical
of the prison system with a risk to security the
intention clearly is to both punish the author
and discourage the voicing of critical points in
a public forum such as Inside Time.
The question has to be asked as to why a
prison intelligence unit should consider a
piece of writing, largely of academic interest,
so threatening that the release of its author
should be prevented?

[Inside Time, September 2009 issue, Letters page]