I read Delroy’s article with interest. I spent five years in prison in the last decade, and I wouldn’t agree at all that prisons are too soft, and doing time is too easy. It’s too simplistic to say that prison sentences aren’t what they used to be. Having duvets and TVs does not make it easy to do time.
What we should be doing is looking at a different approach for short and long term sentences. The majority of prisoners are on short sentences, but they live in the same place, eat the same food and have the same facilities as the longer term prisoners.
I want to start off by saying that prison is not a nice place, whatever the sentence. It is not a nice experience. Sure, you have your things - but at the same time there is constant banging, noises, smells. You’ll be eating your dinner in your cell while your cellmate is on the toilet next to you. You don’t go outside. Your life is confined to a room the size of a bathroom.
At the moment I guess it’s easy enough to do a short sentence. By this I mean a sentence of around a year. You can come in, sit on your bed, eat your food and watch your TV and come out a year later, often no wiser as lessons aren’t mandatory, and definitely no better off. You can get drugs. You can choose whether you take part in education and if you aren’t fussed about breakfast, you can stay in bed all day. It’s boring and being locked up is frustrating, but it’s manageable.
It’s a whole different kettle of fish when the sentence is longer. Everything that is manageable on a short sentence becomes unbearable when you are locked away for a while. The psychological punishment is the worst. You notice things about longer term prisoners. You’ll go into a cell and everything is just so - shoes lined up against the wall - people develop OCD. They are trying to control their environment, whatever they can. You crave activity, you totally get institutionalised. It was perhaps easier for me because I was used to boarding school. But it totally had its effects. The first time I went outside I was scared of the traffic. I couldn’t leave the cafe I was in I also felt like everybody was looking at me and that they knew I had just come out of prison. In some prisons you eat all of your meals in your cell, three times a day for years. Don’t tell me that it’s easy to do time.
I think one thing I have forgotten to say is there is a huge fear of violence. Violence and extreme violence happens everyday, the alarm bells are constantly ringing. Especially if you have been locked up all day, the only time you can settle the score will be at lunchtime or dinner time. When you are on remand for trial you are kept together with people on trial for murder, violence, rape and sexual crimes. At first you don’t know who to trust. You ask yourself - why are they talking to me? What do they want from me? The first day in prison I was told do not give anything to anyone nor accept anything from anyone because if you do they know you are weak.
The only benefit that longer term sentences have over short term is the education. Long term prisoners have to take part in education, in courses and in learning as part of their parole agreements. You can come out with skills and training that will help you. Shorter term guys don’t have to. They can walk in and out without improving themselves. Loads of these guys have had no education. They’ve never had to get up for a job that starts at 9am. Surely prison should teach them these job skills, give them the best chance on the outside?
Prison isn’t a nice place. It affects everyone differently, but hot foods and toilets rather than buckets doesn’t make it ‘nice’. People might look at TVs in cells and not realise that the real prisons are created inside people’s heads. Until prison focuses on educating every prisoner and making sure everyone walks out of the gates with skills and able to take up a job, a prison is just a holding pen.
*Names have been changed.
