How do prisoners experience discrimination? A response to yesterday's prison headlines.

How do prisoners experience discrimination? A response to yesterday's prison headlines

Authors - Andi Brierley & Max Dennehy 

We felt compelled to write this short blog as ex-prisoners turned professionals in response to yesterday's media coverage of prisons. The BBC News, The Daily Mail and other media outlets reported on a prisoner being placed in a position of responsibility on an interview panel to decide the suitability of a prison officer into a specialist role. In our combined 20 years of professional experience in youth justice, education, secure children's homes, housing, recovery services and social care, we have found that this happens in all sectors and is simply a modern day normal inclusive and participatory approach to practice through co-design. These unnecessary headlines led us to discuss the feeling of stigma and shame by the media describing this as 'woke practice' solely because it is within prisons. In so many ways, prisoners are demonised, stigmatised and shamed into believing they are the most underserving group of people in society that are not entitled to a sense of normality. This media coverage is an example of how systemic violence can become symbolic violence. Peirre Bourdieu, a French sociologist explains that symbolic violence is a way the privileged and powerful reproduce status quo by making the weak and vulnerable believe that they are indeed less deserving. We say no to all forms of violence. 

In case you didn't get the chance to catch the reports, we will give you a brief overview. The Prison Officers Association (POA) felt the practice was "outrageous" and has asked Justice Secretary Brandon Lewis to intervene according to BBC news - describing the deputy governor as "rogue."  A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said: "This has been stopped with immediate effect. All prison governors will be instructed not to repeat this in future. One fundamental problem here is the assumption that this practice is inappropriate for prisoners, simply because a human is imprisoned. Throughout the 8.5 years we both spent in prisons, we would suggest possibly 10 - 15% of the prison population we spent time with would use such practice for inappropriate means; but hey, were just ex-prisoners, so maybe it's inappropriate for us to 'have a say.' However, let's look at the prison itself.

Mr Gillan, of the POA states "parading prison officers before prisoners on interview panels to determine their suitability for a particular role in their employment is not needed, or indeed appropriate". The article itself, which is at the end of this blog, indicates that in their last inspection of the prison in 2021, HMI Prisons state that it is a "troubled prison confronting difficult, long-term challenges", and reported a number of significant concerns about the treatment of and conditions for 'prisoners.' Therefore, we arrive at a position of sympathy for both the prisoners that will have this great upskilling opportunity taken away which prepares them for employment upon release; but also, the creative leadership team that have been directed to improve the 'conditions for prisoners' to then have their hands tied behind their backs by both the POA and the MoJ. It is worth questioning why does this happen for prisoners in 2022, when almost everywhere vulnerable groups in society are promoted and protected from such headlines? Here's our view.

The 'push back' against discrimination of women, minority groups ect comes from grass roots movements that force society to 'wake up' to the way its treating certain vulnerable groups - and often many in those groups in positions of influence make sure that the narrative stays relevant. The issue with prisoners for example is very few ex-prisoners make it to such positions of influence in society to wake people up. Moreover, in the rare occasions that they do, they very rarely represent the general prison population with intersectional experiences of drug addiction, the care experience, poverty, school exclusion or youth incarceration. They are often ex-prisoners that had some level of privilege prior to incarceration. As prisoners that have first hand experience of overcoming such experiences, it is our view that the MoJ should 'push back' against the POA and connect the innovative approach to the prison trying to 'improve prisoner conditions.'

Being in prison is a very challenging experience to navigate for both prisoners and prison officers. Therefore, we as a public need to understand that our obsession with isolation and risk management of prisoners is ineffective to the wider ambition of reducing reoffending. It doesn't prepare prisoners for employment upon release. If we do not believe the loss of liberty and incarceration is enough punishment, we do not understand the prison experience. The prison sentence gives the victims and society their just deserts and holds the prisoner to account. The one thing we assure you is that if we do not undertake such practices that upskill prisoners for work upon release, that just deserts won't reduce further victims in the future. We must start to see that prisons are full of assets, not scary people that need constant managing and treating like a subsection of society. The high levels of violence and high reoffending rates are not because we use creative practices such as this. These issues are due to over isolation when humans need relationships to be well, oppressive regimes, a lack of innovative practice such as providing prisoners the opportunity to co-design their living conditions and providing opportunities to have a voice. Maybe we should have more headlines about the underfunding from a succession of governments to invest in prisons alongside an obsession with excessively using prisons which makes them unsafe spaces for both prisoners and prison officers. 

The answer to these issues won't lie in creating an adversarial divide between officers and prisoners. We need approaches that bring them together and develop an understanding that the best outcomes for us all is to treat everyone in society with the respect and humanity that is required for human growth as outlined here by Carl Rogers!

Max Dennehy - Recovery Housing Worker

Andi Brierley - University Teacher at Leeds Trinity University 

The BBC and Daily Mail articles are below:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11313679/Woke-jail-governor-HMP-High-puts-convict-hiring-panel-prison-wardens.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63247857