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]
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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]
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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]
