‘It’s the smell that hits you’: A brutal portrayal of life inside the governor’s crowded prison

The acting governor of one of the country’s busiest prisons has given an exclusive interview to Sky News on prison conditions, the realities of early release and why we need to rethink decisions about who goes to prison.

Here’s what he told us.

There is a smell that you always associate with prison – the smell of unwashed bodies. Prisoners can go two weeks, sometimes longer, without changing their clothes.

Laundry services are one of the first things to be abandoned, as overcrowding means other things take priority, and access to showers during opening hours is limited. Personal hygiene is always a source of conflict.

Prisoners do not go to prison to be further punished. The punishment is going to prison. When the regime is so limited, so strict – prisoners feel that they are being further punished and react to it with their behavior.

Even providing food can be a trigger for further aggression. If the staff is stretched thin, lunch will be brought to the cell door instead of allowing prisoners to go to the canteen. But for the prisoner, it is just another example of refusing to leave the cell.

They are held behind cell doors for 20 to 23 hours a day, sometimes in a single cell shared by two. Floor space is minimal. Toilets may be next to the bed. It is not a conducive living environment. So the unlocking time is at its peak.

The wings are filled with every sound imaginable. A fine line between frenzied excitement and something more sinister. The staff knows about them.

Violence

You would expect prison to be brutal by its very nature as an institution. But it is constant. Every day. And it gets worse.

Across the estate, assaults on prisoners have increased by 16% in the year to March. Assaults on staff have increased by 24%. I can’t honestly say that staff are safe at work, and sometimes they’re afraid to come in. They leave the landing strip in tears. They’re overwhelmed.

The availability of weapons amplifies this. And it could be anything. A broken piece of furniture, a razor blade, a kettle of boiling water. Even plastic cutlery. Witnessing the effects of attacks using these kinds of tools is very difficult. But you can’t eliminate them entirely.

If no violence or self-harm occurs during the day, we can consider it a success.

Finding an inmate who has cut himself is traumatic. Yes, you raise the alarm, you call for help from a medical team. But at that moment, the help of a prison guard can be the difference between life and death.

Sometimes there is no warning – staff may find an inmate who has committed suicide. You may have been the last person to see them, having locked them up the night before.

You may have had a purposeful conversation with them. And the next time you see them, they have taken their own lives. This is not just another prisoner. This is a human being that you may have gotten to know very well.

Drugs

The Chief Inspector of Prisons in a report earlier this month noted that illegal drugs were a problem in “too many” prisons.

You can feel them in the wings. You’re more likely to smell them than see them, because most drug abuse happens behind cell doors. The amount of time prisoners spend behind them encourages this – making it easier for time to pass.

The threat of drones bringing drugs into prisons has never been as acute as it is now. To get them there, prisoners will try to game the system – sometimes through threats and intimidation – to be placed in cells that are more easily accessible from the outside.

Psychoactive substances have had huge repercussions in the prison environment. Previously rational prisoners undergo a virtual personality change. It really changes them. But the addiction is such that they simply can’t stop.

Early release

Thousands of people were released from prison last week after serving 40% of their sentences to free up space. Next month, we will see thousands more do the same.

No matter what stage of their sentence people are released at, there will always be those who you fear will reoffend. There have not been many prisoners I have spoken to or seen released who have talked about it as a golden opportunity to change their lives.

I fear we have pushed this policy through rather quickly and I have concerns about the external infrastructure that is supposed to support them. Releasing prisoners without a place to live will only have one effect.

So the question becomes, are we doing the right thing by these people, or are we simply contributing to their failure by making sure we increase prison capacity?

If a large proportion of the people we let out end up coming back, then we haven’t really achieved anything.

Future

If we are serious about reducing the prison population, we need to look at sentencing guidelines for certain offences. This has recently become a topic, with high profile cases where we have seen people sent to prison for cyber related offences, comments on social media.

Prison should be reserved for serious, organised and violent crimes.

These will be decisions that must be made beyond my position.

If we don’t take action and review the laws, I think there’s a danger, especially for the younger generation, that people will go to prison for relatively minor offences and come out with ideas and associations that will take crime to a whole other level.

And the reaction?

Responding to the issues raised by the prison governor, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “This Government has inherited a prison system in crisis, putting pressure on the entire criminal justice system and ultimately on society.

“We are taking difficult but necessary actions to make sure we can continue to arrest dangerous criminals and keep people safe.

“We thank all our staff for their hard work and we will continue to make improvements to our prisons to help more offenders turn away from crime.”

The government says emergency early release measures to tackle overcrowding are just one part of its plan to reform the prison system. In the longer term, it says it will consider building more cells, review sentencing approaches and increase the number of probation officers.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email [email protected] in the UK. In the US, call your local Samaritans branch or 1 (800) 273-TALK.