Contraband, debt and realisations

Over the next month or so my daily routine pretty much stayed the same. The nightly cell workouts, and visiting the gym 3 times a week, were really beginning to pay off, both mentally and physically. One big positive that came from my sentence was that I got myself into the best shape I’d ever been in! I’m sure this applies to many others too – having more free time than you know what to do with leads to many hours of press ups and sit ups and team this with the small meal portions and no alcohol it’s bound to have an impact on your physical appearance. It was a complete life style change for me and I felt, and looked, good for it.

I was still ‘working’ as a mentor which I enjoyed much more than the workshops. Each afternoon I was assigned to a classroom where a teacher had asked for a mentor to help support any lads who were finding the workload difficult. The classes ran from 2-4pm and consisted of around 10-15 lads, but I’d generally work one to one with somebody who was struggling to keep up. From this, I’d often build up good relationships with the lads and would help them outside of the classroom with things like letter writing or reading legal letters for them. I wouldn’t have ever wanted anybody to feel embarrassed and so never pushed my offer of help on anybody, nor was I ever bullied into helping, I was just happy to if they wanted to ask me. I actually made some pretty good friends from doing so and whilst helping we’d enjoy a coffee and a chat. There was one particular lad who I’d often have a game of chess with and, despite my best efforts, I lost every time. I always thought I was alright at chess but I just couldn’t win a match against him – he was like a male Beth Harmon!

As my mentoring usually began in the afternoons, my mornings were often pretty mundane. From around 8:30am the wing was pretty dead with most lads either at work or in a classroom. There would just be a couple of officers walking the wing or popping in and out of the office and the handful of lads who had jobs on the wing including 3 cleaners, the store worker (Andy) and the laundry worker. Anybody who didn’t have a job was generally banged up during this time but as I had a pretty good relationship with the staff, and was always willing to help the wing cleaners, clean the staff office or help Andy with jobs, they were pretty relaxed about having me out of my cell. I was extremely grateful for this as the 12 hour bang up was long enough without adding another 4 hours to it. Quite often the jobs would be done quickly and we’d have time to sit playing cards or monopoly on the upper landing, whilst the smell of bleach filling our nostrils from the freshly mopped floors.

Although I generally kept myself to myself, I did have a small group who I often hung around with, especially during those mornings as we all had our enhanced status and worked on the wing. Andy was my best mate in there and we got on really well. He’s actually the only person I’ve met up with since we’ve both been out. Then there was Ben who was only 23 and the wild one of the group. He didn’t mean any harm and was a nice guy but liked to keep himself amused by playing pranks on us. Lastly there was Matt, a pleasant, more mature guy in his late 50s who came across as intelligent and a proper family man. Each morning the four of us would gather at the end of the wing on the upper landing where there was a large round table with chairs placed in front of a window overlooking the exercise yard and fields beyond the razor wire fencing. We’d have a coffee and a maybe a game of cards whilst chatting about general day to day things, such as our routines or lives outside. Amongst the general chit chat we had a few good discussions surrounding issues in prison and what we felt worked well or what could be done better. One such chat was about mobile phones.

I have spoken of mobile phones and in cell phones quite often on Twitter. From my time working nights on the wing as an OSG, I obviously knew mobile phones were used in prisons. However, I had no idea quite how many there are around or what they can look like and my eyes were opened massively during my sentence. For those who don’t know what a “prison mobile” looks like, imagine a car key shell without the key blade, thats how small they are. Obviously they are illegal and if you’re caught with one you’d be in serious trouble. However, I’d say 50% of the prisoners in my wing had one or at least access to one and they can be really difficult to find. I used to think when officers spun a wing of cells and found 3 phones they’d done really well. Now, from my experience as a prisoner, I’d think finding 3 phones would be a small percentage of them. That’s not saying the staff are lax at all, it just seemed that the lads, certainly the ones on my wing, were always a step ahead. For instance, if Intel comes in that Barry in cell 5 has a mobile phone, by the time a search is carried out the chances are that the phone is no longer with Barry and nowhere to be seen. How they seem to disappear so quickly I really don’t know, but I did learn a few things whilst serving my sentence.

Whilst working as a night OSG I learnt quite a few of the popular hiding places, such as in the bins, the pool table pockets and in dirty laundry bags. I’d say the majority were hidden in cells though and some of the places were quite frankly ingenious. I saw one hidden inside a TV, the back taken off with a makeshift screwdriver and the phone hidden between the wires and chipboards. Another clever one was inside an original source shower gel bottle where the opening was sliced vertically to allow the clingfilm-wrapped phone to fit through to be submerged in the shower gel. The original source brand was the preferred choice as the liquid is opaque! I’m sure there are many more brilliant and inventive ways to hide mobiles, not to mention the obvious place, inside yourself. It really did make me wonder how many phones were actually hiding in the cells.

There are obviously pros and cons to mobile phones in prison but I do sway towards the cons. I get the argument that if they were to be allowed it could be beneficial to the mental health of prisoners as they could keep in more regular contact with loved one. However, I also strongly believe it would cause unnecessary trouble in prisons. People get slashed for things as insignificant as not paying back a packet of £1 noodles, imagine what trouble it would cause if people were lending phones from others and using their credit. People will end up in debt they can’t pay off with their minimal earnings, and the debts can double each week he fails to pay before it will end in worse than a small slash. As brutal as it sounds, these situations happen over much smaller things than mobile phones and I sadly witnessed this a couple of times.

One Saturday, in late summer 2017, I had a pile of laundry and as people didn’t work on weekends, everybody did their own on a first come, first served basis. The laundry room was located on the upper landing by the gate which lead you off the wing. It was like a grubby little sauna, only around 3m x 3m, and housed 2 huge industrial washing machines, a large dryer and a big steel sink, all stood on a permanently damp, brown tiled floor. Behind the sink was a heavily steamed up window, the constant condensation build up blocking any views of the yard outside. As you arrived at the room with your washing, you’d place your laundry bag on the floor to hold your place in the ‘queue’ and hope that everybody waited their turn. It was then a case of keeping your eye out on the person in front of you going in so you’d know it was then close to your turn. On this particular day, there was a situation between two guys as one had taken it upon himself to jump in front of the other in the queue, apparently due to this guy owing him a vape cartridge. This obviously got his back up and so, in retaliation, he took the TV from the other lad’s cell. The acts were undertaken discreetly as there were officers around but the rising tensions were quite obvious to us all. I was stood by the pool table later that day when an argument broke out in a nearby cell. I saw a lad leave and thought it would be the end of it but a group of 3 followed him into his own cell. I can’t say exactly what happened in there but it was quick and the guy ended up with some nasty looking slashes across his face, so I can have a good guess. All of that basically started over a £5 item. It absolutely mortified me that this was the mentality of some people and I was suddenly reminded of my fragile position in here as ex HMP staff. I’d managed to keep this underwraps so far so I just had to hope that I could continue that for my last few months.

Something which would offer a safer alternative to mobile phones and that I strongly believe should be mandatory in all prisons is in cell landline phones, which I have spoken about a lot. Back in 2017, when I was inside, there were no more than 20 prisons in the UK that had phones in cells and I was so lucky that Oakwood was one of them. I know there was a drive in 2018 for phones to be introduced in many more prisons but I can’t be certain of up to date figures, although I’m sure it is nowhere near all of them. As previously mentioned, I feel there are many benefits to having them including the positive impact they could have on the mental health of prisoners and a reduction in arguments and bullying. Whilst having phones in cells would decrease the use of mobiles, I came across so many during my time at Oakwood so can only imagine how many are in use in all those prisons without the luxury of cell phones.

Another extremely popular, yet prohibited, item found amongst prisoners is a UBS stick, which seem to get in really easily. One Sunday Andy asked if I fancied a brew in his cell and to watch the fight. It was only around 10 hours after Floyd Mayweather had fought Connor McGregor and there I was, sat watching it with a coffee. We didn’t cause any harm in doing this, we knew it was “illegal” but us watching the boxing didn’t ruffle any feathers. However, I couldn’t believe how it was possible, how did the USB stick get in so easily? I was told that somebody had been passed it from a visitor during a Sunday morning visit and Andy bought it off him. How simple that is seems quite scary doesn’t it. The stick was a standard USB, easily big enough to have been a pen knife or a hollowed USB casing full of whatever substance you want. In this case it was a USB stick with a boxing fight and a football match on it but what It could have been and how easily it happened was frightening.

Obviously contraband in prison ranges from phones to USB sticks to drugs, each dangerous in their own right and all rife in the environment I was living in. I was still very vulnerable in a dangerous place with a few months to go. I just had to focus on my tag date but at the same time keep my wits about me.