The warders themselves stand in the way of improvement in our prisons, says robert chesshyre |
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Running a jail must be one of the most thankless public service jobs. There is security (an escape can signal the end of a career); logistics (in these overcrowded days, prisoners come and go by the vanload); rehabilitation (slashed budgets make this almost impossible).
But above all there is the Prison Officers Association, an organisation that at times seems determined to frustrate all aspects of enlightened penal policy. As a reporter, I have spent many days in governors' offices, and felt as if I were on the bridge of a ship where mutiny festered below decks.
I was not, therefore, surprised by this week's wildcat strike when the POA mounted a lightning (and illegal) walkout.
Governors say that dealing with industrial relations is both the most time-consuming of their functions and the least rewarding. Of course, many prison officers join in order to
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| Good ideas are scuppered because the Prison Officer’s Association says ‘nyet’ |
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do good. But many join merely because it is a job that requires little by way of qualification. What can easily happen within a prison - a closed world for the officers as well as for the inmates - is that the lowest common denominator prevails. I have seen good, positive ideas scuppered because the jail POA says 'nyet'.
Officers have a choice. They can spend their days turning keys, using their massive power over their charges to chivvy and harass, and pass their spare time in the canteen moaning about how hard their lot is.
Or they can embrace the agenda of most governors, and seek to encourage prisoners to positive programmes like learning to read and write and controlling their anger. The easy route is the first and it takes strong character to resist it.
When Margaret Thatcher reformed the unions, the monolithic bodies that represent uniformed public servants escaped the net. We still have Victorian jails and, within them, far too many Victorian attitudes. 
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 30, 2007
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'Tough' new Labour bends to tabloid will
