Marking your card

Marking your card

Prison Officers when they have it in for you they "mark your card" up for other Prison Officers to let them know you are fair game for unofficial punishment. For example, many years ago I was in Bristol Prison, and charged with a disciplinary offence, I succeeded in getting a not guilty. The "Corned Beef" (Chief Officer) ordered a basic grade officer to make me get my hair cut. This officer took me along to the prison hospital to ask the medical officer to examine me for head lice. I told him before he checks to check that I had already asked the doctor to check my hair for lice that morning. The medical officer told the screw that I had a clean bill of health. The screw whined "What am I going to tell the Chief?". The medical officer replied "That's your problem". The Chief Officer could not lose face on the Wing, so he ordered the screw to take me to the block (Segregation Unit). There I was ordered to scrub my cell out with a toothbrush. I refused and as a result I was subjected to assault and battery by a Senior Officer. The next day I saw the doctor and showed him my injuries. He asked who had done it, and I pointed out the Senior Officer and the doctor wrote it down in my medical record. Then he ordered the medical officer to get me x-rayed. The Governor visited me down the block and asked me what I wanted. I told him all I asked was that I be returned to the Wing. On the Wing inmates cheered and shouted "He's still got his hair!". It was a small victory. That evening the Senior Officer got a jug of cold water thrown over him, it caught the back of his head and back of his shirt. As he looked up and was in the process of saying "You missed", another jug full hit him full in the face!

In other words, marking your card may be if they cannot get you for one thing they get you for another. This disease is more marked in Category C Prisons, where the screws tend to have vindictive and petty mentality. A reason why Phil Wheatley recommended that I did not go to a Cat C Prison but instead go straight to Cat D open prison. The Parole Board in its wisdom went for Cat C instead, where I stagnated for the next 2 years before a brief backwards transfer to Cat B and then leapt forward to Cat D.

It is a pity that prisoner Ben is in a Cat C Prison, at the very least he should already be in Cat D following his last Parole Board recommendation. He will not gain anything by being still in Cat C. The Parole Board has a duty to protect the prisoner as well as protect the general public. I feel that the Parole Board played chicken in Ben's case, and perhaps should have directed his release.