prison channel 4

[furlinedsheepskinjacket]

truly shocking

I have recorded both and will watch tomorrow.

This episode was even more harrowing than the last 😔. Poor poor James and Chris was so patently vulnerable and almost childlike.
I had no idea things in the prison system were as desperate as this. Is there anything the ordinary person can do to try and change things / help?

SurfnTerf - I think you need to lobby and lobby everyone you can think of: your MP obviously, but also David Gauke, Rory Stewart, Philip Hammond. The prison service is staggeringly underfunded and is facing further reductions. It’s a hidden service, none of us really knows anything about it (why would we?) but we really should, because the way we treat our prisoners it reflects our attitude to all society. Prison officers are doing a difficult and often dangerous job, but aren’t particularly celebrated eg in the way other public servants (fire crews, ambulance crews etc) are.
There is a really difficult balance between the demands of the “lock em up and throw away the key” and the reality of accommodating and rehabilitating those people. Eg when prisons are over-occupied (2 men to a cell built for one), it’s not only the cell that’s over-occupied but also all the other facilities, eg workshops. If there aren’t enough spaces in the workshops for the men to work, then they have to share the work and spend the rest of their time not gainfully occupied, which gets them tetchy and bouncy and on edge...
So write to people and ask what they plan to do. Conference time is coming up - see if can be on the agenda. Help it become something society cares about.

Yes I watched it. Very sad and depressing. Some very vulnerable people there. Once out, nowhere to go. Life is shit when you are down that low.

Sunny, thank you - I will do this. I'm in Scotland so I'm not sure if the issues are the same or different challenges, it's something I'm going to be looking into a lot more. As you say - out of sight and out of mind for most of us and that definitely needs to change.

Yes, Scottish Prison Service is separate and I don’t know if they have similar (extent of) issues or not. I don’t know how well they’re funded - I was just having a quick google and lots look more modern than many of the English ones which means better designed, hopefully safer etc. But still worth flagging your shock, I think.

I found this excellent article on what is going 'right' with the prison service in Scotland and what lessons might be learned for England and Wales;
www.holyrood.com/articles/inside-politics/what-are-we-doing-right-scottish-prisons-isnt-working-england

I watched the latest episode last night and was so affected by poor James. I woke up in the night and it was the first thing I thought of.

It's a bloody disgrace what's happening to people with mental health issues in jails.

I work with women leaving prison and am also a former prisoner myself albeit a few years ago.

The women's estate is not like this although it's not without its problems.

The men's estate is packed to the rafters with drugs and men that are constantly in and out.

So, this begs the question where is it all going wrong.

IME, the money thrown at drug treatment services is immense. In our area alone it's 22m and we have drug issues that are rife where I live. The services near us are widely criticised due to the level of dealing that goes on outside the building.

There is also the issue of how addiction is treated. Our local services are keeping scripts low in dosage thus rendering people unable to maintain sobriety. It is also fact that people are brainwashed into believing that it is not their fault they have an addiction. Known as PSI programmes, they are unlikely to address the underlying issues.

The cost of short-term sentencing is huge as is the cost of criminality to local communities by addicts.

Our prisons are full and those with MH acute conditions are being denied treatment due to those with addictions. It's also cheaper to house a person in prison (£112 per day) than to hospitalise a person at a cost of £450 per day.

It's a huge problem and the issues are behind walls too high for us to see over.