Here’s another article in the ‘My Prison Journey’ series. In this article I try to dispel the common misconception that there are only two types of prisoners in prison.
“There are two types of prisoner in here.”
Such a cliché! If I had a penny for every time I heard that! It never works. At the very least there must be four types of prisoners, with the only differences being the subsequent differentiation’s for points three and four. Point one would have to be those with issues regarding mental health and development. Point two would have to allow for those prisoners who are innocent. Throughout my sentence the suggestions I have heard for the two types of prisoner include (but are not limited to);
- First timers vs repeat offenders
- White vs BAME
- Decent criminals vs Nonces & sex offenders
- Drug takers vs non-drug takers
- White collar criminals vs violent offenders
- Domestic violence vs general violence
- Thieves vs robbers
- Crimes against individuals vs crimes against companies
- Male vs Female vs Intersex vs Trans vs ? (you see where I am going here!)
In my experience this pigeon-holing never works. There are always exceptions to the rule. For example, a first-time prisoner may not be a first-time offender – it may merely be the fact that it is the first time they have been caught. Is somebody who takes prescription medicine a ‘drug-taker’? None of these distinctions can adequately encompass all of the prison population. As a pure aside, I have often thought it strange that the prisoners who so loathe being labelled by society are so keen to place labels on each other.
Some of you may already know that I have a predilection for irony, however I am also more than a little bit partial to an oxymoron or a dichotomy. In this vein there are always individual cases that qualify for the ‘present company excluded’ clause.
On more than one occasion I have heard a general declaration along the lines of – “I think that anybody that hits a woman is a scumbag coward” – only to realise that they are in the company of a man who has murdered their partner. Such declarative statements will generally be amended by adding a qualification – “except in your case obviously, that was just a tragedy.”
However, after much reflection I think that I may have found a framework in which the four types of prisoner model actually works.
- Prisoner with complex mental health / developmental issues
- Prisoners who are innocent / wrongly convicted
- Prisoners who regret their crime
- Prisoner who regret getting caught
When the average person first finds themselves behind bars in a British prison, they are most likely to be feeling fear and anxiety. However, once an individual‘s shock at entering a UK prison has passed, regret is likely to be the most prominent emotion that they feel.
Those who regret their crime will likely find a way to come to terms with their imprisonment and get on with serving their sentence. Because they regret their crime they will try to identify the cause of their criminality and ensure that they do not make the same mistakes twice. In short, those who regret their crime will seek out rehabilitation and find a better version of themselves in prison.
On the other hand, those who merely regret being caught will devote their energies to avoiding being caught in the future. They will likely identify the mistake which led to their conviction as being the only thing wrong in their lives. Serving a sentence is merely an occupational hazard and will be approached in the same way that they approach their lives.
There are a number of ways to describe those that regret being caught. At a recent appearance, the Reverend Jonathon Aitken described them as ‘Double Richards’. When he served his sentence in Belmarsh, doing ‘Richard’ meant serving a sentence (rhyming slang, i.e. Richard the Third = Bird). Being a Double Richard meant that you were making your sentence twice as hard when you resented serving it. As the old proverb goes, “Holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for your enemy to die.”
There is rehabilitation within the UK prison system – but rehabilitation only works if the individual is motivated to change. In order to change one must first accept that something is wrong. But convincing somebody that there is something wrong is only the first step – in order to effect change an individual must have a better option. There has to be an opportunity for them to change – just knowing something is wrong is not enough.
For example, the vast majority of the civilised world knows that global warming is a major problem. Moreover, we have identified not only the main causes for global warming, but how to reduce their impact. How frustrating for environmentalists to know what’s wrong and how to fix it but not to have the opportunity to make that fix?
The behaviours that are plaguing the streets of towns and cities are becoming more prevalent within our prison estate. This is sadly evidenced in the increasing criminality within prisons. The disillusioned and disenfranchised generation that are dealing drugs and carrying knives in turf wars are fighting over prison landings instead of postcodes. It is not enough to help them see the error of their ways.
All too often prisoners find themselves in a vicious circle of offending, resigned to fulfil the low expectations that society has of them. While they will regret their offence they do not have the tools, skills or perhaps most critically, the opportunity to make better choices.
