We’re all just commodities

With private companies taking over the running of more British prisons, are we as a society benefitting from the easing of pressure on the public service? Or are we hurtling towards the disaster of a shattered prison system where the focus of rehabilitation, care and public safety is pushed aside for the priority of these companies making their fortune?

Anyone who has ever been in a prison, either as a live-in guest, staff or visitor, can’t help but notice that there is an ever-increasing feeling of frustration amongst prisoners and staff, with the main focus of the establishments more and more being turned towards saving money and squeezing the life and use out of every possible resource, manipulation of prisoners, and abuse of staff to the point where retention is a constant problem.

While prisoners are constantly ‘reminded’ that the management care about them, their rehabilitation and their futures, the reality seems to be a very different lived experience. At my recent prison, one of the newest-built in England and privately managed, the general feeling amongst the population is that survival is not always guaranteed and that we stand alone.

The food budget is squeezed to within an inch of its life, with food portions big enough to feed a toddler. Vegetable options have reduced to boiled mixed veg only, and it’s an amazing talent where everything tastes the same. There seems to be constant ‘availability’ issues resulting in frequent changes to the menu which sometimes aren’t appropriate, such as someone being given peanut butter sandwiches despite having an allergy.

The fluid regime appears to change daily, which is having a knock-on effect on prisoners who need a structure. The uniformed staff seemingly have an average age of 19 with no life experiences, and the majority lack the skills needed to be able to talk without barking orders as if they were in Stalingrad. Those officers who are effective, positive and respectful are so stressed, because everyone goes to them with their issues, that they eventually suffer from burn-out.

Healthcare, recently taken over by a private contractor, seems to be a game of Russian roulette with your life.

Education, often the oasis of calm in a prison, seems to be abused by an allocations department which insists on sending prisoners to courses that they neither need or want. Our actual requests are just a fancy to be ignored, while the mystical allocations team sit in their den of solitude rubbing their hands together while laughing manically. The education staff bear the brunt of frustrated people.

Directors (who always say they don’t recognise claims) sit in their plush offices, fingers in ears and humming their favourite tunes to themselves before later going to lunch, congratulating each other on how great a job they are doing and how they are masters of the world. Meanwhile prisoners are dying needlessly and the front-facing staff get the abuse that should be directed at managers. Many at the prison couldn’t even tell you what the Directors look like, as they’re too scared to venture onto wings because it would mean facing reality.

On the war-zones known as wings, it’s much easier to score drugs and hooch rather than get food, with many prisoners going hungry. As long as the managers are ok and well-fed, then their view is that we’re ok too. If someone dies, they’ll just ship in another asset because they need to squeeze every penny out of our existence.

So, are we prisoners? Yes, in the sense that we can’t leave, but to the company which manages the prison, we’re just financial assets who can be mistreated and abused as much as they like. But we shouldn’t worry, because they ‘don’t recognise any of the claims’.