Episode 22 - A Prisoner is Dying Every Four Days

One learns in prison to be grateful for very small things, most of which we take for granted in the real world.

During the three and a half years I was in prison I wrote over a million words by hand. Tales From The Jails is a contemporaneous account of my life, and attempts to thrive rather than merely survive, whilst incarcerated.

Most names have been changed. The events have not.

This is a Jekyll & Pride production.

Producer: Trevessa Newton

Title Music taken from The Confession, on the album Crimes Against Poetry (written and performed by The Shadow Poet, produced by Lance Thomas)

Copyright Jekyll & Pride Ltd 2025

@jekyllandpride2023
@theshadowpoettsp

Transcript

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During the three and a half years I was in prison, I wrote over a million words by hand. Tales from the Jails is a contemporaneous account of my life, and attempts to thrive rather than merely survive whilst incarcerated. Most names have been changed, but the events have not. Episode 22 A Prisoner is Dying Every Four Days. I'm sat here in my little oasis in the hub of HMP, listening to some opera on Funeral FM. I don't know the piece, nor a word of the Italian, beautifully performed by a woman I know not of. And yet, it does not matter. I feel full of emotion. In one breath, I feel invigorated, and yet a melancholy sadness wraps around me, and my nerve endings feel exposed. My mind is as turbulent as the dramatic opera. It's hard to describe how the atmosphere beyond my oasis hangs like an early morning mist, lingering. It can be draining in this predatory enclosure. And you're always alive to, one is prey at any one time. The apex radar is never switched off. I find pockets, moments of complete peace and clarity, when it feels as though I'm outside of all of this. Looking in. The place is on edge after yesterday, and the aftershocks are still being felt throughout the prison. We've just been told there is no gym again, another blow to the mind and spirit. However, committed to the cause, I've done a bedding stores workout that included 200 squats, 200 press ups, hundreds of crunches, and a yoga stretching workout. Only stopping in between to wind up the radio. Days like this drag out. The gym breaks up the monotonous routine. A different environment. The 60 seconds walk to it affords me fresh air and natural daylight, regardless of the weather. A trip to the kitchens with the trolley is like a day out when you're penned in small, intimidating spaces. And hanging about outside for five minutes waiting for the kitchens to let us in is better than any time on the wing. One learns in prison to be grateful for very small things, most of which we take for granted in the real world. The radio fades again, in the middle of Gone with the Wind. Just as the violin strings sweep me off to halcyon days with T. I suppose this morning is just one of those times when mood has too much time to brood. I ponder on the thought, can one truly know or feel love if they cannot compare it to pain or loss? Yesterday has rippled over us all but shook some individuals to the core. I hadn't left my pad for work this morning and I was already on duty as a Listener's listener. Once again, the radio fades. This time it's Barber's Adagio For Strings that is at the mercy of the wind up radio. Beauty and madness sharing the same brief moment. Somehow, the strings overpower the sound of the whirring wind up as they climb higher and higher to fever pitch. If I close my eyes, I can imagine being anywhere else but here, such is my connection to this piece of music. In the background, but distinctive, is another code red alarm. I was told the other day that there were only 14 officers on duty in the whole of the prison at one time. How is this possible? How is it allowed to reach such a critical point for us all? Officers and inmates? There's over 1, 200 prisoners and it's a Cat. B high security prison, full of violent men and lunatics. There are hundreds of prisoners, young scallies terrorizing and attacking lads for tobacco. Or anything you have. They'll take your toaster because they can. Because the violent consequences aren't worth the resistance. However, the morale between officers is low. And they're refusing to work because they feel unsafe. The cutbacks in the prison service only compounds the issues I write of on a regular basis. Officers murmur that there is no career opportunities and they say it feels like it is a blunt inevitability looming whereby cutbacks have cut into their thought about staying in the job. Job satisfaction is non existent and officers feel HMP is a sinking ship and something to escape from as a career rather than to commit to. The irony is, I suppose, that the only difference between officers and us is that they go home at the end of the day. We've only had gym for two sessions this week and it fuels the tensions. Even down here in the workspace. All of us working in close proximity. The lads are bored, moody, and then become more juvenile. Normally, the first arrivals from court, those put on remand or the guilty verdicts, or those sentenced, they can start arriving about one o'clock. Then they're processed, showered, fed, and given a bed pack by me. I'm in the bed stores. It's the last workstation before new inmates are escorted up to the wings. Each pack, or bundle, is a blanket, a sheet, and a pillow slip. Inside the pillow slip is a bowl, a plate, a cup, a knife, a fork, and a spoon. All of these are plastic and in some depressing blue colour. We also have to supply new inmates with a breakfast pack, which has a packet of cereal, and a carton of milk the size of a packet of cigarettes. There is also a couple of sugars, a couple of sachets of powdered milk, and finally, a couple of prison teabags. They colour the water, but provide no taste. Sometimes, it's a trickle of arrivals. Then at other times, a group of ten to fifteen, and it's chaotic at the counter. if Mr. P is on, he watches every stage of the way. He's horrible, on a par with the wretched creature, but in uniform. When he's on, everyone gets the bare minimum. No extra chips or rice, or anything to the lads who arrive. Give anyone an extra blanket or a milk, and I'd be sacked and humiliated in front of them all. He plays with us like a cat terrorising defenceless mice. He revels in reminding us, always in earshot, of how he detests prisoners. And if you're struggling, vulnerable, or suicidal, well he's a gloater. You can't say to an inmate, I can't give you another blanket because Mr. P won't allow it. And as such, we get grief off the lads in front of him. He loves that. Lads who have done time get it. But scallies rattle off insults. These new arrivals have no idea what they're facing when they go through the door next to my workstation. A wing, maybe the induction wing, acclimatizing us before we are dispersed to a main wing. But it's still daunting, stepping onto any wing. They're big steel and concrete boxes, intimidating any time of the day. When they're empty, when the lads are all banged up and it's eerie, then, the sound bounces off the steel into the empty space where it's amplified. Then, you're dumped into a cell with a stranger. Ironically, there are plenty of lads here, whereby it's a step up from what they're used to. And that's sad. Maybe stories leaking out in the BBC at Wandsworth will start to have an impact. One prisoner every four days is dying in prison. The majority are suicides. The knife attacks are worse. They're into double figures daily. Nothing seems to get reported or done about it. It's like the system and the workforce is completely broken. But as a result, we receive the worst of it. People may have sympathy for officers, but other than loved ones, I'm afraid society does not weep or care for our plight. When you see prisoners acting like wild animals on the media footage, you have to ask yourself, how is this helping the problem? I can't sign off without mentioning the drones. Walton has become an airport for them, such are their regularity, especially at night. It's the unmistakable sound they make that catches your attention first. They're like a swarm or squadron of hummingbirds. They swoop in and then hover outside cell windows. Smashed ones, of course. They're so accurate. The guidance in the tech. They can deliver a one kilo parcel to a cell window. At least a handful per night are doing successful drop offs, flooding the place with phones, drugs and weapons. Honestly, it's like a war zone. With staff at the bare minimum, the prison is fighting a losing battle. Lads only have to put a hook on the end of a rod to pull in the parcel hanging outside. I can see a day when the courier deliveries will be drones and not people, such is their accuracy. To make matters worse, the food has deteriorated, and that really fuels anger amongst the lads. If they're not starving, then the food they receive is not fit for consumption. It's either overcooked or undercooked, and when it arrives on the wings, almost certainly it's cold. Then the lads who work on the servery, where no hygiene clothing and health and safety is non existent. Basically your food or meal is dumped on your plastic plate like it's mortar on a board. If you're stuck on the wing then it's back to your cell and banged up. An officer said to me it's safer for the lads to be banged up at the moment because of the blades epidemic and the flooding of drugs into the prison. I'm lucky. If it didn't work in Reception, my prison would be far worse. And maybe I wouldn't be writing about love so much.