WALTON WILDCAT ACTION SPREADS

As the walkout by prison officers at Walton jail enters its second day, the unofficial strike has spread with HMPs Risley, Lancaster Castle, The Verne and YOI Lancaster Farms also apparently out in sympathy, with other prisons including HMPs Kennet, Preston, Wandsworth and Cardiff also holding lunchtime meetings.

News reports claim that the Walton walkout was in response to claims that a culture of "harassment and bullying" by senior managers has left screws "demoralised". This apparently is linked to an employment tribunal brought by a Walton prison officer in September where, according to the POA, "both the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Prison were heavily criticised by the Tribunal Judge." The Deputy Governor subsequently sent the screw in question to HMP Kennet on 'detached duty' last Friday, prompting the unofficial action.

However, there is more to this than meets the eye. Along side the claims by Liverpool POA Branch Secretary Paul Leigh that staff "are in fear for their health and safety because of the unsafe manning levels" and the lack of sanctions against senior management in the Pentonville and Wandsworth 'ghosting' cases, there is a simmering dispute over pay. In July the Prison Service Pay Review Body (PSPRB) plumped for a 1.6% pay rise (in their evidence to the PSPRB the MoJ had suggested 1.5%), the POA wanted an increase of around 2.6%, the rate of inflation.

All this comes on top of the dispute about the Workforce Modernisation proposals, and has led to various attempts at 'go slows'. We understand that at HMP Birmingham (Winston Green) staff refused to carry out suicide watch duties and monitor inmates in the jail hospital. This led to the Prison Service taking out an injunction against the staff. The same day Walton officers followed Birmingham in refusing all constant watches and bed watches, activities that are paid as overtime (a flat rate 'payment plus' scheme) and obviously open to 'work to rule' dispute tactics.

Needless to say prisoners are facing 23 hour plus bang-up with the jail being staffed by around 50 managers and non-union members. One con is quoted in the Liverpool Echo as saying: “We have just had a cold microwave meal: about eight peas, six chips and half a cold fish", and that "This is the worst jail I’ve been in and I’ve been in 13 or 14.” [18/11/09]

NO ONE GETS THE CHOP OVER GHOSTING SAGA

It appears that no one will loose their jobs over the Wandsworth and Pentonville 'ghosting for inspections' saga that blew up at the end of August. The incidents occurred in May and June this year when vulnerable but disruptive prisoners were transferred prior to announced prison inspections.

An internal Prison Service disciplinary hearing has dismissed gross misconduct charges against former Wandsworth governor Ian Mulholland, now head of custody in Wales, and former Pentonville governor Nick Leader, currently governor of HMP of Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire. Apparently they weren't aware of what was going on within their own nicks.

Meanwhile 2 other prison staff charges with disciplinary offences have gotten away with 'final written warnings', which will remain in force for two years, with one being barred from promotion for three years. A female deputy governor at Wandsworth was also given “advice and guidance”. [12/11/09]

WAS IT THE PORRIDGE OR WAS IT THE VISITS?

On Monday the Liverpool Echo published a story headlined 'Changes To Breakfast Menu And Prison Visits Cause ‘Absolute Chaos’ At Liverpool Walton Jail', ostensibly about prisoners being "furious" about their choice of eggs or cereal for breakfast being replaced by the choice of "porridge for breakfast or starve", as one prisoners was alleged to have been told when he complained.

Yet, on examination only, 3 sentences out of 17 were about the breakfast issue and the "absolute chaos" quote was in fact related to the (non) operation of a new telephone booking system for prison visitors which prison officers claimed left them in fear of “threats and violence”.

The mother of one prisoner was quoted as saying, “I phoned 96 times on one day using redial and could not get through. You can only book on this phone line but it is engaged all day and then switches off for lunch. The prisoners are getting really annoyed. My son said it was near a riot because they cannot see their mums and girlfriends.”

Today the Daily Express got hold of the story from the Echo and changed the headline to 'Prisoners Threaten Riot Over Porridge Breakfast'! Except they spiced the piece up by adding rent-a-quotes from one of their favourite Neo-Con PR groups the Taxpayers' Alliance, a front-group for ex-Tories and their millionaire donors who think that the Conservative Party are far too liberal and have abandoned their traditional position of cutting taxes for the rich.

So we get Matthew Elliott, 'chief executive' of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, saying 'it was outrageous that criminals were on the verge of rioting over their choice of breakfast – or privileges such as visits'. “It is of the utmost importance that prisoners are treated in a humane way. But many taxpayers will find it a bit rich that convicted criminals are moaning about having porridge for breakfast. The bottom line is that these people are in prison to be punished because they have committed crimes, and if life on the inside is like a five-star hotel, where is the incentive not to re-offend?” So a choice of eggs or cereal makes for a five -star service does it?

To top it all off, the Express adds two sentences to explain that porridge is slang for jail time, with of course the obligatory reference to Ronnie Barker, and that it was "was the traditional breakfast served to prisoners."

So we have a 22 sentence article, supposedly about a potential riot in a prison over porridge for breakfast, where 2 of the references are 'helpful' explanations for the paper's readers who wouldn't actually know what porridge is, 2 references lifted from the original article about the actual situation and 2 from somebody who has nothing at all to do with the situation (and who clearly doesn't know much about prison except that it costs him money) but who just happens to be available 24 hours a day for a helpful quote to pad the whole thing out and help pander to the prejudices of the paper's readers.

And bizarrely, the only person making any sense in the whole article is Glyn Travis, assistant secretary of the POA: “The concerns raised by prisoners and families of prisoners in relation to the booking system are legitimate. It is not fit for purpose. It is causing absolute chaos in relation to domestic visits and legal visits." [10/11/09]

HMP BRIXTON GHOSTED PRISONERS TOO

HMP Brixton has now been confirmed as being involved in the 'ghosting for inspections' scandal that has already engulfed Wandsworth and Pentonville. According to Napo, about half a dozen high security Category A and Category E (those considered high escape risks) were moved prior to a Prison Service internal security audit earlier this year. Removing a number of 'high risk' prisoners would have the effect boosting the potential security audit score for this overcrowded Category B prison. [08/11/09]

FEMALE PRISON POPULATION EXPLOSION

It was revealed yesterday that the government continues to fail to live up to its previous promises to cut the numbers of women prisoners. Whilst the current total of 4,293 women prisoners is down by 32 on last year, the courts in England and Wales jailed 8,862 women in the last 12 months, the highest total on record and 50% higher than 1997.

The sharpest increase is amongst older women, with the population of over 50s up by 139% over the decade and those in their 40s up by 127%. The only group that has decreased is the under 18s. Most women (more than two thirds) are serving time for non-violent offences and a much higher percentage of the female population are serving shorter sentences (11% serving less than 6 months in 2007, against 6% of the total population), hence the higher rate of increase .

Since New Labour entered office the number of women prisoners has more than doubled in England and Wales (up from 2066 in June 1997), against a total prison population increase of 40.7%. Scotland also shows a similar increase, up by 90% in (currently 353 or 5.1% of all Scottish prisoners). In comparison, the increase in the average female prison population between 1987 and 1997 was 51%. [03/11/09]

NICK GRIFFIN, TV, POPPIES AND PRISONERS

It's about time that someone put Nick Griffin straight about prisoners and what the pleasures of watching TV costs them. His totally spurious reasons for continuing to wear the British Legion poppy, despite having been asked by that organisation to stop doing so, have been redundant even before he dreamed them up. But like all politicians, when has that ever stopped him from trying to get a bit of publicity exploiting cheap shots at prisoners.

He claims (in a BBC interview) he will continue to wear the symbol whilst "Young British soldiers, sitting in hospital in Selly Oak, having lost limbs fighting for the country, are having to pay to watch TV in the wards, while criminal scumbags are sitting in prison watching TV for free", or as was more diplomatically put on the BNP website "while criminals in prison enjoy such privileges at the taxpayers’ expense", allegedly at the 'request' of these soldiers' families.

Mixing every day with so many ex-prisoners, one would have thought that he would already know that the only TVs prisoners get to watch are those in association areas, where they have little or no control over what is on. If they want to watch a TV over which they have control, they have to 'earn the privilege'. And it hey have 'earned the privilege', it costs them £1.50 a week to hire that TV and, when the average weekly wage for a prisoner is around £8, that amounts to nearly 20% of their wage. I bet Griffin would not countenance paying 20% of what he is earning from the EU parliamentary gravy train on the same 'privilege'.

If he is so concerned about hospital patients being forced to pay exorbitant prices for the privilege of watching TV or for making and receiving phone calls from their beds, he should be taking on the people who negotiated these lucrative deals with the private providers, not taking cheap shots at prisoners. After all, they are suffering the same sort of extortion on the pricing of their phone calls to their nearest and dearest. [21/10/09]

DAMAGE LIMITATION EXERCISE

The mock outrage that has been expressed by some in the prison industry over the 'ghosting' incidences at Wandsworth and Pentonville (see: HMPS Caught Red-Handed) is merely an attempt to keep the lid on a (whole) can of worms that many have known about for decades but the prison industry insiders have sought to keep quiet about. Ghosting, the ghost train, the magic roundabout, the merry go round, the prison on the motorway, whatever you want to call it it has existed for many decades and has been condoned in Prison Service Instructions (i.e. 37/90). But the effect is the same whatever it's called: move the prisoners on, either because s/he is a troublemaker and you want to keep them isolated from their potential support, from friends and family or from making contact and organising with other prisoners, or simply because they are a 'problem' prisoner and staff find it easier to send them away and not deal with the 'problem' themselves.

Both criteria appear to be operating in this case, with vulnerable but disruptive prisoners were moved on temporarily in an agreement between the 2 governors prior to announced inspections. Six Pentonville prisoners were moved to Wandsworth before the inspection in May this year and returned immediately afterwards. Five Wandsworth prisoners were similarly moved the weekend before the planned inspection in June. Two of the Wandsworth prisoners had previously tried to commit suicide and both had hospital appointments booked in the week after they were moved. One prisoner was apparently dragged from his cell and taken to the prison reception 'bloody, handcuffed and dressed only in underwear' after cutting himself and tying a ligature around his neck to try and prevent the move, according to Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector. He tried to hurt himself three more times after arriving at Pentonville. Both subsequently self harmed.

Former Wandsworth governor Ian Mulholland, now head of custody in Wales, and former Pentonville governor Nick Leader, currently governor of HMP of Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire, have been charged with gross misconduct, and the deputy governor of Wandsworth and two other managers are facing similar charges. None have been suspended but all will go before a disciplinary hearing chaired by Michael Spurr, deputy head of the National Offender Management Service. [20/10/09]

DISTURBANCE AT HMP ADDIEWELL

Sunday saw the second prisoners' riot at the £130m 'state-of-the-art' private prison in West Lothian since it opened last December. The Kalyx-run Category B & C prison has been branded as 'cushy' because of the en-suite shower rooms and 15in flatscreen TVs with inbuilt Freeview in the prison's cells, and the nick name amongst some of the prisoners apparently is The Addison', after the Radisson hotel chain.

The riot lasted 6.5 hours, with 30-odd prisoners barricading themselves in Lomond B Hall and holding staff off with mop handles following claims staff brutalisation of a prisoner. According to one prisoner quoted in the local press, "We just decided to fight back this time. A short-term inmate was hit by a member of staff and we all got involved."

"We attacked five of the staff with mop poles and drove them out of the hall. Staff are lifting their hands to the boys who are then moved to another prison and nothing is ever done about it. Enough is enough. Everyone reckons the Addiewell is cushy, but lads are getting doings in here. It's got to stop." 4 staff being 'injured' and a female guard was taken to hospital, according to a Scottish Prison Service (SPS) statement.

During the previous disturbance in February, 48 prisoners were involved in a 3 hour riot that saw 60 LCD TVs trashed, water-pipes ripped from walls and taps left on, flooding part of Douglas Wing. The spark for that riot has variously been attributes to the prisoners not having been fed for 2 days (according to the prisoners), an individual complaining that there weren't enough sweets in the prison canteen/shop (Kalyx) or 'an individuals personal problems' (SPS). It was also revealed in July that Addiewell has the highest incidence of prisoner on prisoner assaults in Scottish adult prisons and the second highest prisoner on staff assaults after the women's prison at Corton Vale. Figures are not available for staff on prisoner assaults. [13/10/09]

NAPO - GIVE PAROLE BOARD LAST SAY

The National Association of Probation Officers (Napo) has called for the removal of the powers of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to be able to interfere in parole decisions, as part of their response to the MoJ. Currently the Secretary of State can use his power to overturn decisions on any prisoner who is serving 15 years or more. Citing the Biggs and Michael Shields cases, Napo claim such decisions must "rest with the independent Parole Board free of political control."

Yet this ignores the fact that the Parole Board itself is far from immune to 'political influence'. For example, since 2006 and the severe criticism it garnered for its role in the Anthony Rice case, and despite the 'Benson - Bradley' test (the parole test for mandatory lifers - whether they pose a "more than minimal risk to life or limb" or not) not having changed, the Board has severely restricted the numbers of lifers sent to open conditions because of the fear of 'public opinion' and making another such mistake. [12/10/09]

PRISON GOVERNORS' ASSOCIATION CREATE STIR

This week' s annual conference of the Prison Governors' Association has certainly hit the headlines for a change but strangely most of those headlines and the newspaper stories they relate to seem to be missing a vital fact.

When yesterday the PGA voted to call for the abolition of sentences for less than a year's duration it was inevitable that the tabloids would cry foul very loudly. It was also inevitable that they would almost all fail to spell out the single most important reason why they had come to that decision, the honourable exceptions being the Guardian and, surprisingly, the Morning Star.

And the fact that most missed out on is that Jack Straw has just demanded a 7% reduction in the overall prisons budget next year instead of the previously announced 3% year on year saving that brought about amongst other things the reduction in the standard core week last year to the lowest level for nearly 40 years.

Richard Ford in the Times almost explained the reason when he explained about efficiency savings i.e. prison budget cuts but he got the figures wrong, claimed last year's cut was £30m in an overall budget of £2.2bn. It was in fact £60m of £2.05bn, which represents a 3% reduction. Thus next year's reduction would amount to a cut of around £140m, which is not exactly chicken feed and will certainly radically change the way most prisons are run.

We say most prisons because, as Richard Ford rightly pointed out "the spending cuts and savings are to fall largely on the 124 state-run jails because officials have found they cannot cut the sums paid to firms running private jails." Paul Tidball the president of the PGA claims this is because the private prison contracts cannot be renegotiated and that "existing contracts cannot be varied down which means that the performance at HMPS prisons will inevitably decline due to reduced funding, while the performance of the private, some of them already a lot more expensive than our own, can sail on merrily with 100 per cent of their funding maintained and assured.”

Inevitably this raises the prospect of a two-tier system in standards, with public sector prisons unable to carry out any education and training provision and the cuts and overcrowding even leading to “widespread disorder” within state-run prisons in England and Wales. And the irony is that it is the private sector prisons that are a bigger drain on the public purse.

So, apart from the Guardian, Independent, the Times and the Morning Star, all the rest of the newsprint media's take on the story was the associated call to cut sentences of less than a year. 'More than 60,000 muggers and louts should NOT be jailed each year, say prison bosses' bellowed the Mail. "More than 60,000 muggers, burglars and yobs would escape jail every year under a scheme proposed by prison governors", it claims completely ignoring the fact that about 40% of the 60,000 are sentenced for sexual, drug and motoring offenses. On top of that, the paper cannot even use the latest sentencing statistics, opting instead for 2007 figures. (At least they got their calculations right, one online news service inthenews.co.uk claimed "Some 65,000 out of 100,348 prisoners sentenced in 2008 were given sentences of 12 months or under, therefore the move proposed by the PGA could slash prison numbers by two thirds.")

The article also quotes David Green of Civitas, author of 'Prison works. So why won't we admit it?', who they describe as a 'criminologist', criticising the PGA's idea as 'deeply misguided' and 'perverse'. "The effectiveness argument is that people leave prison after short sentences and reoffend, and they blame that on prison. I blame that on releasing them. They are released when they should not be. The problem in this country is we give short sentences to people who should serve longer sentences." This is the so-called 'incapacitance' argument - lock more people up and there are fewer people around to commit the crime. Of course one would have to follow due process otherwise that would be a form of internment.

Interestingly, all the stories quoted this anonymous e-mail from a fellow governor that Paul Tidball had received: "The potential for prisons to blow is about as heightened as it gets in my view." Some, like the Times also quoted the e-mail further: "The potential for prisons to blow is about as heightened as it gets in my view," yet only the Guardian went the whole hog and added the full pre-released text, which also stated, "Twenty-three hours' lock-up would not give me 7% efficiencies. Even application of reduction of prisoner visiting days by half does not get me there." [07/10/09]

BEN'S PRISON BLOG

The Ministry of Justice has stepped in to ban a prisoner from publishing a blog. Despite the Justice Minister Maria Eagle confirming that prisoners in fact had the right to blog, this prisoners, who posts his observations on life as a prisoners to a friend outside who them places them on the internet, is being targeted by the MoJ, not because of what he rights but because of who he is.

The prisoner in question, Ben Gunn, also just happens to be the new General Secretary of the Association of Prisoners (AoP). The AoP is a small, and some would say almost nonexistent, organisation. But if it in itself does not currently pose any threat to the 'maintenance of good order' in the prison system, the very idea of prisoners organising and fighting their corner does, even if it is not actually illegal under Prison Rules to form such an organisation.

The Campaign Against Prison Slavery has been working with Ben and the AoP on a number of issues recently, based around prison labour and prison canteen prices, and we wish to publicly declare our support for Ben and his right to communicate to the public his views on prison issues. He is not getting paid for his efforts, he is not breaking any prison rules on correspondence and the MoJ should recognise that he is doing them a great service by painting in his blog a far more realistic picture of prison life and issues than we get from the tabloid papers. [15/09/09]

SCOTLAND'S PRISONER POPULATION

It is official, Scotland (157 prisoners per 100,000 of the population, up from 152 in 2008) has leapfrogged England and Wales (153 per 100,00) and now imprisons more people pre-head of the population than any other Western European state other than Spain (164). [30/08/09]

HMPS CAUGHT 'RED-HANDED''

Now we all know that bureaucrats will go to any lengths to make themselves look good in the eyes of their superiors. Well now the Prison Service has been caught red-handed trying to 'cook the books' when it came time for a visit from HM Inspectorate of prisons.

It seems that prior to inspections of Pentonville and Wandsworth nicks in May and June this year prisoners were moved between the 2 prisons, presumably to make them appear less over-crowded. Justice Secretary Jack Straw reacted in mock-horror, saying that it was "neither policy nor acceptable practice temporarily to move prisoners during inspections", and called for an inquiry. [28/08/09]

SPS UPDATE

We are still waiting for news of the outcome of the Scottish Prison Service Industries review carried out by Paula Arnold earlier this year. We understand that much of Industries is still in limbo, though rumour has it that the new revamped system will aim for a higher percentage of training opportunities rather than previous Contract Service-style activities. To that end Paula Arnold's replacement Tom McMurchie (ex-Deputy Governor of Corton Vale and, more aptly, Head of Training & Development at the SPS College) has been appointed with a new title - Purposeful Activities Manager. [06/07/09]