What’s it like to be in prison? What’s it like coming out? Paul Carter-Bowman spent over 1,000 days in Feltham and Reading Young Offenders Institutes and Portland Prison, England. He is now studying Law at the University of Westminster.
Do not press your panic button unless you are dying.
Do not talk out of the window.
Do not sit on the window sill.
Do not kick your door.
Do not make a wick.
Do not steal from your fellow prisoners.
Do not smoke on your bed.
Do not seal outgoing mail.
Do not play-fight with your cellmate.
Do not lend or borrow.
Do not make holes in the walls.
Do not graffiti on the furniture.
Do not damage any prison property.
Get used to it, you live here now.
“Fine,” I said. The prison officer shut the door, “What do I do?” And what do you do? For up to 23 hours a day I was to be locked up. I read Dante. Reading, and dreaming, was all there was to do. I thought, day in, day out, of just being free. Of being at home. I thought about my crime and I became bitter. I thought about why I had handed myself over to the police, and I regretted it. Prison wasn’ t the reforming punishment I thought it would be. It didn’t make me feel guilty. It made me angry. I realised that prison did nothing to prevent crime, as once I thought. Prison just postpones crime.
In Reading Young Offenders Institute I witnessed bullying, intimidation, violence, and some of the screws were no better. One prison officer took me into the doorway of his office after bang-up, and, two inches from my face, tried to provoke me to attack him. Half the screws were like that, the other half were all right. In Reading I worked an average of six hours a week. I sorted stamps – a fruitful activity, though much to my dismay, no real job prospects upon release. But there is only so much you can do with a prisoner on remand. And I was on remand for 235 days.
On February 24th 2002 I was sentenced to four and a half years for grievous bodily harm. I went straight to Feltham from court. Feltham has its own graveyard for some dead prisoners. It was the first thing I saw. The wing officers, seeing me and my melancholy, gave me a cellmate who was only in for one day. Luckily though, this guy had brought some drugs which helped me get through an awful night.
I spent two and a half months in Feltham. While I was there an Asian boy was battered to death by his cellmate. I was then moved to Portland, a three hour drive from my home town. Around 11 months into my sentence I suffered an attack of paranoid schizophrenia. I believed I was being monitored, that my thoughts were being broadcast to the officers. I believed my every move was being recorded. There were holes in the wall where nails holding up panel mirrors and poster boards had been torn out. I put my ear up to each hole listening for the mechanical buzz of recording equipment. Undecided, I filled up each hole with toothpaste. I knew that what I was doing was odd, but I couldn’t help it.
The attack lasted only several hours. Fortunately I had A-level psychology books in my cell; they offered me an explanation, and so relief. But I was worried :it would happen again. And I felt desperately alone. And there was no one I could talk to about it. After a few months there I turned 18, and was sent to Benbow, a unit for Portland’s older inmates.
This turned out to be my worst experience of prison. An incredible amount of violence took place on that wing, and there was a great divide between black and white prisoners. That wasn’t helped when, during association, one of the officers put the skinhead. film Romper Stomper in the video. The officers did nothing to curb the violence and bullying on the wing, in fact they were scared of some of the prisoners. Several times I saw officers being punched by some of the tougher inmates; the officers would try their best to laugh it off. I didn’t feel very safe.
Last year I asked someone from high up in the Prison Officers Association what he thought of the Portland screws. I got the impression that he didn’t care much for some of them. For the first 1,000 days in prison, I didn’t spend one second out of custody. Prison is a dreadful place, and it badly needs changing. I spent so much time thinking about just being outside, if only for an hour. But as time went by, I gradually thought less and less about leaving prison.
On March 30th 2002 – the day the Queen Mother died, the day I celebrated having served exactly 1,000 days – I was released from Portland for six hours. I had finally been granted a town visit, whereby I would be allowed to Weymouth under the supervision of my family. The grass would be greener. The sky would be bluer. I had believed that, for so long. But the grass wasn’t greener, and the sky was grey. By midday I wanted to go home to prison. After that I had only two more town visits. And a few weeks before my release I was given one week of home leave. I didn’t think much of it.
I went back to prison on the Friday that England were knocked out of the World Cup by Brazil, and I had only 12 days left to serve. I made the most of them. After having hated prison for so long, I just didn’t want to leave. No one had any expectations of me. There was no one I could disappoint. I’m very grateful for my time in prison, but I have done all right by it only, because I, and other people, wanted me to. For most prisoners that isn’t the case.
After my release it took a whole month to find a minimum-wage job. Job after job, I was flatly refused. The manager of a Littlewoods store invited me to an interview. He kept asking me about prison. He was genuinely interested but he never got back to me. I ended up working in a pub, cash in hand. The landlord had been in prison himself.
I returned to college to restart my A-levels – I wasn’t given the chance of doing them in prison. I found a more secure job, working at Sainsbury’s. Fortunately, I had kept my mind active in prison with books, and last year I got three A-levels. Yet I’ve been rejected from all but one of the universities I’ve applied to. People can pick and choose who they want to employ, and who they educate. And not surprisingly people do not want a. criminal.
Article Credit:
This article first appeared in The Guardian August 2004 and subsequently in the Pastoral Renewal Exchange September 2004
