Have you ever been in prison?

[mybigteninchrecord]

What was it like? Just that really, curious!

Yes quite a few from working in them, on the wings etc. There are little things that happen that just break people and it's awful to see, but on the other hand, you'd be surprised at how creative prisoners get.

I've been to lots of prisons for work. I've always found them quite fascinating places, even before I was a regular visitor and have read quite a few books written by ex prisoners such as Vicky Pryce and this one:

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07WHMTWLV/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title

YY to 'lots of gates and doors'. I was once in a disused section of a high security prison, and my escort didn't close the gate we had just come through, because there was no need, but I found this very unsettling and couldn't concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing because there was an open gate nearby and that just never happens in that type of prison.

It's not a deterrent. Prison doesn't work.

I've worked in prisons. I really enjoyed it. The YOI was absolutely bleak though - 15-18 year old boys who had mostly just been failed. It is not a place any child should be and it does nothing but remove them from the street (and puts them back after being exposed to far worse).

Currently work in one - men's Cat C. Visited many including Belmarsh and other Cat A's in previous job role. Little experience of the women's estate though

That depends on whether you believe prison should be a deterrent or therapeutic.

Frankly, it's effective as neither. It only keeps them off the streets for a period of time. Plenty of them are still criminally active and making money while they are inside....

We went to Shepton Mallet prison this summer. It's no longer used as a prison, but is listed, so can't be demolished. We did an escape room based in a cell and then a self guided tour. Obviously not the same as being in a working prison, but really interesting.

I am a translator and worked with detainees in the custody cells in a city in Spain. Imagine all the nasty smells possible, sick, BO, wee, blood etc and crack the heat up to 38 degrees. I would come home, strip off at the door and shower for ages.
The police were very kind but I hated these jobs, it was very harrowing. A lot of jeering from the cells if I walked past (most of not all were men).

Volunteered in a charity I support to work in the kitchen as a visiting group in a Cat D open prison. Got plenty of time to talk to inmates in the kitchen and prison officers. Seemed like a nice place , and all the inmates were good boys in their last 6 months before release and could work outside as long as they returned in certain cases I seemed to remember. I casually asked on guy who was chopping onions what he was in for and he said "Let's just say I did something that there is no coming back from 11 years ago that I can't change" - he had stabbed and killed a man in a fight in a pub as another inmate had let me know. The kitchen knives were kept under lock and key and carefully monitored at the end of each shift.

The bitterest guy was a north sea diver who worked on the oil rigs off Aberdeen. It was a 2 week on , 2 week off routine and they were totally dry on the rigs. When he came back to the airport off the rig he had 4 pints in the airport bar and drove home in the dark. He knocked over and killed a teenage girl and got 9 years inside. His bitterness was at the criminal waste of his talents as he put it. He would regret that for the rest of his life what he had done but said that the cost of incarcerating him was huge and he wasn't able to work to pay back society for what he had done. He also saw himself as a cut above the average inmate.

I came away thinking we are a very humane society given the conditions and seeming general behaviour of staff and inmates. It was hardly a Daily Mail lock em up and forget the key type of place. They did say the Cat A just up the road was a hell hole full of muppets as they put it and a place to be avoided at all costs.

I just googled prisons in my county as I couldn’t think of any, it brought up a list, several of them said closed…..well you would jolly well hope so. 💁😂

Why? There's a huge overcrowding problem in prisons and the more they close, the worse it gets. They need to go somewhere.

Pretty sure she meant that the opening hours said closed...

There's an ex-prisoner on you tube - an American lady who tells it like it was. I think she did drugs. Quite eye opening. Also some men ex offenders and that is very dark. They certainly told it like it was!

@WrendaleCountryDogs That is exactly it. Just tickled me.

My husband has. For 6 weeks.

I visited him three times. Was horrible

My secondary school was rather like one, or perhaps more like a POW camp as we were able to mix freely at certain times which allowed us to plot our escape.

No. I have a (female) friend who has though. She had a violent boyfriend who she was scared of and she was present when he went round to somebody's house and attacked him, she did not physically participate but served years for conspiracy.

2 years, that should say.

I went for an interview at Broadmoor years ago (OT)

The resources were incredible. I was very naive though and luckily didn't get the job.

I’ve visited Alcatraz but never an in use prison.

I think of what life in prison would be like everytime I go through airport security. I never pack anything illegal, but I’m still worried I have a few kg of something stashed away accidentally.

There are also open prisons, so the closed ones are the ones that are not open.

In an open prison, inmates can go out to work and possibly even home at the weekend, they're used for non violent offenders or those coming to the end of their sentences as a transition back to normal life.

The book I linked to above (A Bit of a Stretch - only 99 p on Kindle, or at least it was yesterday) had a description of an open prison - the man who wrote the book had unintentionally been convicted of fraud and spent some time in a closed then an open prison.

It was a joke.🙄

Not as an inmate but I worked for 2 years as a nurse in a male prison. I hated it.

This was my experience, and why I hated it.

Same ... although off today