I work in a mens prison AMA

[CrispAura]

Send me a question, and I will try to answer as honestly as possible

Working in such an intense environment you have to have a lot of trust in your oppo. Have you noticed a lot of relationships between staff in your prison?

Why on earth would you be offended? OP didn’t say all civilians. Just listed the different ways drugs have been brought in by civilians.

Prison staff I once knew told me porridge was reasonably accurate and based on stories from prison officers. Was that true and if so what has changed?

If you have children have any prisoners ever threatened them - or threatened to harm you once they get out?

Do you work in a private prison and what do you think of them?

What advice would you give to someone being sent to prison for the first time in terms of surviving and avoiding trouble?

Her actions also endangered the lives of all the other female POs exponentially. The dangerous and manipulative prisoners now have extra leverage on them all, all so she could get extra publicity for her OF? That level of wilful recklessness is worthy of our distain.

Hi - I will answer this but am aware this is another person's thread so don't want to derail it as it's not about prison libraries per se .

You could apply to have some of your own books , they would come into the prison via security to be looked at to ensure they are just books and don't contain any contraband items.

You wouldn't be allowed to have shelves of books in your cell as it would be seen as a security risk ( you could hide things there , or be forced by other prisoners to hide their stuff ) and also cells are regularly checked by staff and it would take to long to check them ) they would be stolen , plus you are just one of many hundreds of inmate in jail , if they allow you your own personal library what else do they allow for others . You'd just be expected to use the prison library and order a book if it's not already available .
Banned books would be a controversial author / subject with might encourage hatred or violence .
Any title about drugs , home brewing , and believe it or not ( in the jail I worked in ) any title on babycare / childcare / pregnancy as the likelihood of seeing photos / images of naked or undressed children as we had a large wing of Vp's ( vulnerable prisoners which mainly means paedophiles )

Thanks OP for sharing your fascinating insight!

You mentioned the Sean Bean TV series Time as being true to life. A very different proposition but do you like The Shawshank Redemption?

And outside of films do you think the UK prisons are very different to the US ones?

Great thread OP, thanks for sharing

Is it a Victorian prison or a newer building?

Story on the news today about a former Governor of Wandsworth having to retire due to links with inmates and the case recently of a former Governor at Preston (woman) being in a relationship with an inmate. Is there a creep upward to entice senior people and are they not vetted regularly?

A neighbour taught in a prison for a while. She had been in FE previously.

She enjoyed it. There were no behaviour problems as the groups were small and any prisoner who didn't co-operate was removed, so from that point of view it was far easier than school or college.

It was less well paid than school teaching though.

I'm thinking of joining at 52
Just trying to loose enough weight to apply,and sort my fitness out
It was something I'd always wanted to do and life got in the way .
I've probably left it to late now

Yes my husband was one of the ones who left ,for exactly the reasons you state .

I know a prison nurse who absolutely loves her job. She feels the prisoners act differently in a better way towards healthcare staff.

This is one of the best AMA I've read. Very insightful to a world the majority of us don't know and hopefully never will...unless professionally like you.

I’ve come a few TikTok lives of people live streaming from cells that look well kitten out with food and tech. How does all of this happen? Esp with live streaming and access to WiFi.

How many do you think are people with antisocial personality disorder, as opposed to just troubled/traumatised/addicted people? Is it more uncomfortable dealing with the hardened criminals/sociopaths than with the latter group?

@Autumnmouse3 No upper age limit for applicants, I looked it up for you. https://prisonandprobationjobs.gov.uk/roles-at-hmpps/prison-officer/how-to-apply/

Not everything on TikTok is genuine.

@CrispAura hey. I'm about to leave the moj. Healthcare... so employed by NHS but based permanently inside a mens prison. Do you see a divide between prison staff and healthcare? As in my place there seems to be one. I've worked both sides... OSG then over to Healthcare. I loved working there but leaving dye to more and more pressure to do tasks that I don't feel benefit the patients, but are to meet targets for funding/to look good on reporting. It's frustrating as I couldn't do the job I wanted to. I'm leaving the NHS this month. Nothing else to go to yet but just feel so hopeless there. Hopeless is a word I strongly associate with HMP service now. Would you agree? Sending solidarity.

@CrispAura really interesting thread, thank you very much!

I always admired James Timpson’s approach to employing former prisoners.
Is his appointment as Minister of State for Prisons having an impact anywhere in the system?

I agree and I hope @CrispAura is able to come back and answer more questions, there are a lot of us who find prisons fascinating (aware that sounds wrong!)

There are privacy curtains in some prisons now, and windows have curtains too - attached to the windows with magnets. You can see them in inspection report photos sometimes. New prisons have inbuilt screens around the toilet.

Times have changed !