The Home Stretch- Sudbury

A lot of crap is talked about D cat establishments.
People don't get the point of them.

HMP Sudbury is often held up as an example of prison not doing what it should.
Classic case of people not looking at the facts.

HMP Sudbury, is a former military hospital in Derbyshire.
And now, home to 500 inmates.
It has the lowest ratio of screws to inmates of any prison in the UK- about ten screws on duty at any one time.

And the term escape is somewhat meaningless. You can't escape. You abscond.
To get out of Sudbury, you just walk down the drive, wave to the security at the gate, and keep going.
The only thing keeping you there, is you.

It's your choice.
It's a test.

The point is, you went to prison, because you didn't follow the rules. The system has now decided, you don't need to suffer. They'd let you out, if they could. But they can't. So till that day comes, have a break. Chill out for a bit in the rest home for good cons. Just follow the rules. Prove you got your head round that bit. Prove you can follow the rules, without having to be locked up. And then, you'll get your tag/parole. Because if you can keep to prison rules WITHOUT having them forced on you, there's a good chance you can go back out having learned your lesson.

It's up to you to prove them wrong.

Sudbury is notorious, in that respect- an average of two absconds a week.
But don't forget, most of these are picked up pretty quickly and return to a real prison, and having failed the test, will NOT get tag or parole.

So, for most people, the softly, softly, catchee monkey approach, works.

Generally, getting to a D cat isn't easy. I got there at the earliest possible opportunity. Very few prisoners serving a sentence as long as I got, can expect to get to a D cat after just a year. But I'd worked for it, don't forget. To get to a D cat, you need to have a clean sheet as far as your security file goes, be considered no threat to the public, and if you were supposed to undergo offending behaviour courses (I wasn't, because it wasn't judged I had any offending behaviours issues to address, I just took a calculated risk and lost), then you need to have done them.

Most D cats won't take prisoners deemed to be a security risk in terms of how other prisoners might judge them. Sudbury is such a case. No sex offenders, or even people who have ever committed a sex offence. No ex-coppers, no ex-judges. Only prisoners who are unlikely to start cutting bits off eachother when no one is looking.

The difference between a D cat and a B cat is far greater than that between a D cat and normal human existence. You don't have a locked cell. You share a ROOM, without a lock on the door. The toilets are at the end of the corridor. And the toilets have a proper door, with a bolt on it. You can wear your own clothes. You can have up to thirty CDs sent in. I even managed to get my sunglasses sent in (regular readers will know I need to wear them during daylight most of the year). And of course, a duvet, and your own crockery.

And the food. The food in Sudbury is amazing. Proper meals. Proper fry up on a Saturday morning. And Pizza, you get HALF a pizza. You really are being REWARDED for having played the game. And you're stupid to throw that away. Yes, many DO throw it away. Many don't count their blessings, and then no, one can have no sympathy for them when they find themselves back behind bars. But if prison can ever be said to work, it's the D cats that show the way, not the hellholes the hang'em and flog'em brigade think are the answer.

50% of those who go to a D cat will fail. They will either be tempted to skip, or will be taken back to a closed prison, because they get caught with heroin, or a mobile phone, or come back from a visit smelling of alcohol. But the reality is, if you're sensible, D cat is too good a situation to be thrown away.

I can remember the day I got there just lieing on the grass on the back field just stroking the grass. GRASS. Hadn't felt that in over a year.
The night I got there was the night Liverpool stormed to victory in the UEFA cup finals.
What a moment.
Didn't matter who was playing.
To be in a room with six lads watching a game of footie, all cheering, the power of the game in the air, all that was missing, was a few cans.

In Sudbury, you weren't a number any more. You had a name again. And most importantly, you had a FIRST name.

For the first few months, I did a Management course to pass the time. I was on the point of completing it, when an unexpected opportunity arose.
And I took it.
This is the bit where I become immediately identifiable to anyone who either served, or worked in Sudbury at this point.

I took on the position of chapel orderly.
The best position in the prison.

Best, because it had the highest pay. Because of the responsibility. It was an 8AM to 5.30PM job, but you were still responsible for the building all the time that prisoners were allowed movement (between 7AM and 8.30PM).

In other words, you were responsible for it perpetually. Seven days a week. In theory, there were two orderlies, but for reasons I'm not going to go into, I ended up being the sole orderly for a large portion of the time. And I pretty much took it on as a kind of vocation. I actually was there MOST of the time, twelve hours a day, seven days a week.

It was quite a hands on job. It included actually organising TWO Christian religious services a week (Catholic and Protestant). This means, setting out the service, choosing readers, doing the candles, etc. It included providing and setting up facilities for Muslim prayers, Hindu prayers, Sikh prayers and Buddhist prayers. It included providing catering and refreshments at all these. But that only accounted for twenty percent of the job. It included providing an environment for anyone of any faith to come and pray in at any time. And in prison, that's very important to people.

But again, we've hardly touched on the job. I was responsible for providing facilities for AA meetings, I was responsible for giving new inmates their induction talk (If anyone can remember a reasonably well known footballer who received a lengthy custodial sentence, I handled his induction). It included overall co-ordination of a lot of care related functions. The fact that I was also a Listener helped. I don't think there had ever been anyone before who'd had this sort of dual mandate. Normally new inmates received TWO induction talks, one from the chapel orderly, one from a Listener. In my case, I combined both functions. The result- and it did prove to be a slight headache- was that I tended to end up being the Listener who handled MOST of the callouts in the gaol- they knew where to find me.

And of course, the practical task of maintaining the building. I had my own set of keys and my own office. In fact, there were MORE keys on my bunch of keys, than most screws had.

I took the job seriously. Some said TOO seriously. Some said I never really switched off. They'd be right, in a way.
The Orderly office didn't look that office like when I got my hands on it, so I reorganised it. I threw a lot of stuff out. I can remember the CofE chaplain coming in and saying 'What have you done here? It looks more like an office than MY office!!!'

I guess I missed offices.

But I had re-organised it to LOOK like a place of work. It made me FEEL I was working. I put my own desk so it faced the door, and I was behind it. I threw out filing cabinets we didn't need and sorted through everything till we had all storage units in tidy lines along the walls, and a proper set of in-trays and out-trays (believe it or not, the job carried a lot of paperwork- and I got pretty anal about keeping on top of it).

In time the chaplaincy team got used to coming in on Monday and finding I'd overhauled the entire building over the weekend. Other inmates would sit in their rooms watching TV. I'd engage in DIY. I don't think any work had been done on that building for years. No orderly had been properly dedicated to turning it into a building where people of all faiths could find a haven of peace. I pulled up manky old carpets, I moved furniture around, I tore down curtains in places I didn't want them.

The CofE Chaplain (Kind of a Vicar of Dibley figure, lovely woman really), had a remarkable sense of give. She knew she had a good orderly, so she was prepared to let me make the actual chapel area itself look more Catholic. I took all the icons out of their dusty cupboards and put them in prominent places. And she knew, if she suggested an arrangement which offended my religious sensibilities, I'd just stare her in the eye and say 'I can't say I'm comfortable with that. As a Catholic.'



And we'd compromise.

For me, the job was great, on so many levels. The first point was, just how crucial you were. Every inmate met you on the way in, every inmate knew that- both as chapel orderly AND as a listener, you were there for them. And so I really did merge both functions. And I used my office to hear prisoners tell me things, sometimes in a Listener role, sometimes in the role of Chapel Orderly (As in, someone who can push their issue to the attention of people who will listen), most often, somewhere in between. I was experienced enough in how the system works, and more importantly knew enough about the basic psychology behind human interactions, to be able to constructively deal with MOST of the issues that came my way. A few, were slightly outside my league. One case was, but I can't carry the can for that failure alone. The inmate concerned was carted off to an old fashioned closed prison (and almost certainly was sectioned as soon as his release date came up), but the prison psychologist handling his case came to talk to me personally, partly to compare notes on some of the things he had been thinking, but also to re-assure me (because the chaplain had let it be known I had been questioning my own abilities as a Listener as a result), that nothing I could have done, would have changed anything.

The second reason it satisfied, was the obvious. Sharing a room. As I said, most people LOVE to watch TV. I hate it. One way medium. So weekends- after I'd done my (Self-inflated) list of chores- I'd kick back in my office, whack a Depeche Mode CD on, and read a bit in PEACE. Sometimes I could be there an hour or two without being disturbed.

And thirdly, I have to admit, nervous energy. I've always had a lot. And it builds up in there. I've always had a mild tendency to OCD, but it went way overboard.

Every Saturday, I'd take all the chairs out of the chapel and strip the place. I'd clean the place rigidly.

Then I'd align the altar. The altar was movable, so over the week, it moved.
I'd get the tape measure out and MEASURE it in to place.

Then I'd do the chairs.

I knew how they were meant to go. Only I knew.
It's a little known fact that that the pillars in the centre of the frontal facade of the Parthenon are slightly higher than those at the ends. Reason why, is optical illusion. If they were all the same size, the facade would APPEAR to sag in the middle. The builders were VERY clever. They'd sussed this. And they worked out EXACTLY how tall each pillar needed to be, to make it LOOK flush to the human eye.

By trial and error, I repeated that with the central aisle of the chapel. Worked out how to align the chairs so the aisle looked completely flush.
The front rows of chairs needed to be four feet from eachother.
The back rows needed to be four and a half feet.

And I really did measure everything in place till the whole room was perfectly aligned and 100% symmetrical.

I also reorganised most of the building to fit with my own aesthetic tastes- as in, clearly defined areas, clear refreshment areas, very much the functional approach. I even worked out an appropriate division of religious symbolism. I ensured my own office not only had a picture of Pope Benedict above my own desk, it also had a large poster of the black rock at Mecca, the God Brahma and the Buddha on the walls, just to show I was Orderly to ALL faiths.

The only battle I lost, was regarding the eviction of the plants. I suspect I was never going to win this. It's a personal thing. I believe plants belong rooted in the soil, not in pots indoors. I do not like plants- period. But I suspect I'm in a minority here, and my proposal to banish all plants from the chapel was about the only idea I ever had, which was vetoed.

My multi-faith newsletter idea DID work- even though I ended up having to write half of it myself. But I did get some good contributions from other faiths.

Yes, it was worth it. When you're the only white guy sitting on a carpet with thirty Hindus partaking of their sacred meal you feel you're doing something right.
'Crushed, you know how to eat like a proper Indian ! Respeck, man!'
'Course I do! I was the only white guy in my street, don't forget! I've had enough Asian girlfriends!'

But the thing that gave me most satisfaction? Well, as you've guessed, I can't tell you. Listener confidentiality. A case which led to me being a real part of someone's daily existence. And hearing his life, finally taught me, this whole business truly is evil. If I told you this man's life story, none of you would ever be so quick to judge a murderer again. You'd stand back and say 'What do we mean by that? What IS a murderer?'

I'm not telling you his story. Except that it's the saddest story a human being ever heard, and no, none of it was bullshit, he never demanded sympathy he didn't deserve, all you could was be SICKENED at what had been done to a LIFE.

But I really hope now he's enjoying his hard won freedom. And FOR THE FIRST TIME in his existence, that existence can finally be called a life.

Murderers. Ever stopped to ask?
A fight outside a kebab shop. Three drunken lads kick the crap out of a guy who gave them lip in the queue.
One wakes up next day. Ow, my head.
And he hears the guy they beat up is dead.

Straight away he hands himself in.

Oh, I'm not condoning what he did.
Another man died.
But do you not think that the guy I'm talking about carries that IN ITSELF every day?
Yes, what he did was awful.

But just do what I did.

Imagine him, getting ready to go out. Having a shave, combing his hair, putting on some scent, a bit of hair gel.
In his head is girls, beer, his mates.
Not killing someone.

Yes, a life has been lost.

Humanity has already lost something.

Why ruin more lives?

Because that's what we do.

Two wrongs don't make a right, we say.
So why are we so surprised when lo and behold, they DON'T?

He was nineteen. He walked out at thirty three.
DON'T tell me that served a purpose.

Eye for an eye justice is a disgusting concept when you think about it, beneath the dignity of a species capable of taking photographs of Titan.

Well, I'm lucky. I didn't have my life cut to shreds the way others did. I'm sitting here today like none of this ever happened. I remember, but it's pretty much erased from my life. But I never forget that for many, it will NEVER be erased.

And before you start talking about what people deserve, remember what Gandalf said; 'Deserve death? I dare say he does. Many who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then don't be so quick to judge death, Gollum may yet have his part to play in ways even the wise cannot foresee.'

So true.

One of the people who I came to see as a real friend in there was someone many of you would judge very harshly. He was one of Curtis Warren's co-defendants.



He got twenty one years.

His story doesn't matter. What he did doesn't matter. What he IS, and what he WILL be, that matters.
And there's a guy who is going to go out and have a positive influence on the lives of every life he touches.
He'd spent many long years thinking about things. Not all his conclusions marched with mine. He had come to believe a lot of things I think are off the wall- he'd become a big fan of David Icke's theories. This is common in prison- a dim realisation that something DEEP DOWN is wrong. People start to realise that maybe they were reckless or foolish, but they're not evil. So what went wrong?
And they clutch at conspiracy theories.
We had good chats. I told him, he was on the right lines. The entire mechanism he described was correct. But it isn't a mechanism planned by aliens. It's an ad hoc, unplanned development. It's a system that grew and evolved till it came to it's conclusion, the here and now, the rulers and the ruled, the owners and the owned.

Because all this conspiracy theory stuff, blame the reptiles, blame the Illuminati, blame the Masons, blame the Jews, it IS on the right lines.
Except NONE of these imaginary fantasies are the problem.

The problem is this. You can look at a dog and a cat and say God made them different. It's not true. They evolved, without the aid of God, from a common ancestor, who lived about fifty million years ago.
Thus it is with these conspiracy theories.

EVERYTHING THEY DESCRIBE IS TRUE.
If you take away the phantom planner.

I tried to explain Marx's theories to him, because I believe they explain ALL the phenomena without resorting to conspiracy. Yes, there is something rotten at the core. But it is the decay of a system, the wastage of human life, not for a PURPOSE, as all these conspiracy theories believe, but simply because those that rule don't know where the brake is to be found on a train stuck on a one way track heading towards a cliff face.

I actually found our discussions enlightened me as much as him.

Well, not much more to say about Sudbury- the last post will deal with leaving. Leaving the system for good. And I'm going to give you the rare privilege of sharing my parole dossier- I''m actually going to post it pretty much word for word (with my name left out, obviously). Becaue it's very interesting. I'm actually one of the few people who was granted parole even though they candidly said 'No, I don't think I did anything wrong.'
How I pulled that off, you'll see.

But first, a special acknowledgement to a friend of mine who did something special for me.
On my blogroll, you'll find a blog from a blogger who rarely posts. In fact, they only set up a blog, because I have one, and they want to be part of it. I've known her about five years.
At Sudbury, you get day releases. Two a month. You can go out for a day. Lots of things you CAN'T do (in theory), like go to the pub.

But you're back at five, so as long as you have a pint at one o'clock and stick to one, you'll be OK.

Lise, after a year without a pint, that HAD to be the most BEAUTIFUL pint that ever passed my lips :)

And I'll never forget that.