Heaven (A Prison Diary 3)

DAY 202

TUESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2002

7.00 am

I put my pen down after a couple of hours of writing to switch on the Today programme. Britain is in the middle of a rail strike. There’s no station at North Sea Camp.

9.00 am

Two of the inmates who attended last night’s drugs counselling meeting are up on a ‘nicking’. Once the doctor has pronounced them fit, they will attend an adjudication chaired by Governor Leighton. One of them tested positive for cannabis on his latest MDT, and adds ruefully that he expects to be shipped out to a B-cat prison later today. Now I know why he hardly spoke at yesterday’s meeting. He also looks as if he didn’t sleep last night.

1.00 pm

The newspapers are full of stories about David Blunkett’s proposed prison reforms, which seem no more than common sense. Anyone with a non-custodial sentence for a non-violent first offence will be placed on immediate tagging, with weekend custody, and possibly having to report to a police station every evening. For lesser offences, they would be tagged immediately, with a curfew of 7 pm to 7 am. A second offence and they would be sent to prison.

As of 1 February, the prison population stood at 67,978 and the prediction is that already overcrowded prisons will be under additional pressure following Lord Chief Justice Woolf’s recent pronouncement on mobile phone muggers.

4.00 pm

Three more manuscripts arrive in the post today with letters asking if I could critique them. Four publishers have turned one down; another says his wife, who is his sternest critic, thinks it’s first class, and the final one seeks my advice on vanity publishers.21

4.20 pm

One of today’s inductees is a Mr T. Blair. He has been sentenced to six months for disturbing the peace, but with remission and tagging, expects to be released after only eight weeks. The other Mr T. Blair looks set to serve at least eight years.

4.37 pm

I still marvel at what prisoners will have the nerve to ask sister for. Today, one inmate has demanded a bottle of aftershave because he has a skin problem. I’m about to burst out laughing, when Linda hands him a bottle and he leaves without another word.

‘Why can’t he buy one in the canteen?’ I ask.

‘You can’t buy aftershave in the canteen,’ Linda reminds me, ‘it contains alcohol, and several inmates would happily drink it.’

‘But you’ve just given …’

‘Non-alcoholic aftershave supplied especially for prison hospitals. On your day of release,’ Linda reminds me, ‘any prisoner can demand a free needle to inject himself with heroin, as well as a packet of condoms.’

DAY 203

WEDNESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2002

9.00 am

I can’t believe how stupid some people can be.

On Monday I attended a CARAT meeting where one of the participants told everyone present that he had given up drugs. On Tuesday the same man comes up in front of the governor for failing an MDT for cannabis. Seven days were added to his sentence, and he told me he considered himself lucky not to be shipped out. Last night the same man was caught on his way back from Boston in possession of a plastic bag full of drugs that included cannabis and heroin. He was locked up in the segregation cell overnight, and will be shipped out this morning to a B-cat with a further twenty-one days added to his sentence.

His stupidity is not the only aspect of this incident worth considering. If he’d been caught with such an assignment of drugs ‘on the out’ he would have been sentenced to at least seven years, but as his sentence is already fourteen, he gets away with twenty-one days added. It’s just another pointer to the drugs problem this country is currently facing.

11.00 am

Mary has a piece in Peterborough that she came across on the Web. It makes me laugh so much it’s simply better to reproduce it rather than attempt any precis. (See below.)

Woman of substance

Lady Archer’s sense of humour is alive and well. The fragrant chemist has just submitted a “hazardous materials data sheet” to the Chemistry at Cambridge newsletter. “Element: woman. Symbol: Wo. Discoverer: Adam. Atomic mass: accepted as 55kg but known to vary from 45kg to 225kg. Occurrence: found in large quantities in urban areas, with trace elements in outlying regions. Physical properties: boils at absolutely nothing, freezes for no apparent reason. Melts if given special treatment, bitter if used incorrectly. Chemical properties: affinity to gold, silver, platinum and all precious stones. The most powerful money-reducing agent known to man. Common use: highly ornamental, especially in sports cars. Can be a very effective cleaning agent. Hazards: highly dangerous except in experienced hands. Illegal to possess more than one, although several can be maintained at different locations as long as specimens do not come into direct contact with each other.”

The Telegraph also publishes the results of a poll on Mr Blunkett’s recent pronouncements that non-violent, first-offence prisoners should be able, where possible, to continue their work while reporting into jails in the evenings and at weekends; 83 per cent