In FRFI 209 Ben Gunn wrote about the relaunched Association of Prisoners (AOP) and how he sees it furthering the struggles of prisoners. In FRFI 210 John Bowden replied. Dermot Donovan writes from Parkhurst prison in response to their contributions.
Thank you for your excellent paper which, I’m pleased to say, has done more for my political education than I can say in this letter. I’m also pleased to say it is enjoyed by other inmates I pass it on to, some who didn’t know their left from their right at first! Of course it was denied to me to start with, but I cited my right to freedom of expression and what with my knowing when it arrived due to you sending it recorded delivery, I always get it now!
The reason I write now is about the Association of Prisoners (AOP). John Bowden’s response to Ben Gunn was brilliantly put and I could not possibly improve upon it. If my memory serves me correctly, Gunn has already written in Inside Time about how ardently he is opposed to socialism (see ‘Diversity…bring it on!’ Inside Time February 2009), so how can he champion something (the AOP) which by any logic would be modelled on socialist theory?
I don’t know if it has gone unnoticed but the Labour Party, with its ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes’ pledge has launched the biggest assault on the working class in living memory. By introducing the Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (ISPP) they have effectively made 153 offences punishable by life, as an ISPP con can only be released on tariff by a kangaroo Parole Board.
This has now led to thousands of working class young men languishing in prison due to not being able to lower their so-called risk, simply because there are not enough places on re-education offending behaviour courses.
It appears the lot of the ISPP cons has gone over the heads of the AOP. I would imagine that, all things considered, none of them give a shit about not being able to vote.
For the record, like Ben Gunn, I am a lifer, as opposed to an ISPP prisoner, but I can see the issues that have impacted on inmates a lot more than anything this so-called AOP appears to be raising. I should also point out that the massive number of ISPP prisoners with short tariffs (typically 30 months) and the speed with which they therefore reach their tariff expiry dates is resulting in delays in Parole Board hearings for all lifers and indeterminate sentence prisoners.
So all this begs the question as to what is the position of the AOP on these very real issues that are impacting on a significant percentage of the prison population (nearly 10% are on some kind of life sentence!) For what it’s worth, I don’t want to hear bullshit about entering into talks with HMPS. Let’s get it right; we didn’t get improved conditions through talks did we? No, it was the events of 1990 that brought in-cell toilets etc.
ISPPs have been in use since 2005. Labour changed the law in 2008 so courts can’t now give out tariffs of less than 24 months. And it’s obvious the courts have slowed down in handing them out. But mark my words, Labour’s war on the working class will come home to them when, a few years hence, prisoners who are years over tariff – often in prison for something that before 2005 they would have copped two or three years for – will explode.
Up and down the country, ISPP cons are the biggest disaffected group and quite rightly so. I honestly believe Labour knew full well the implications of the ISPP. To all intents and purposes, they are lifing off the working class! To give you an example of how shocking it is. A fellow I know was given an ISPP with a tariff of 16 months for ‘threats to kill’ someone who owed him money. No actual violence was involved. So far he has been in prison for four years.
His first parole – overdue – gave him a two-year knockback as he had not completed enough ‘offending behaviour work’ to lower his risk. He’s due another parole hearing some time this year. He already knows he will likely get another two-year knockback due to failing drug tests. Some might say that’s his fault but his head is in bits and you can’t blame him for trying to get through his time in gaol. He will be lucky if he gets out at the six-year point. And when he does he will be on licence for a minimum of ten years. Probation can recall anyone to prison without a new conviction – just not being ‘of good behaviour’ is enough. This of course applies to everyone who is on any kind of licence but, given ISPPs and lifers can expect another two-year knockback once they have been recalled, you begin to understand why this class of convict feels trapped in Labour’s Criminal Justice System.
Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection
The Labour government’s Criminal Justice Act 2003 changed the entire criminal sentencing structure. Its measures included a provision, which came into force in 2005, whereby anyone convicted of a violent or sexual offence for which the maximum sentence was ten years or over and who the court determined to be ‘dangerous’, received an indeterminate sentence. Any previous violent/sexual offence automatically rendered you dangerous and in some cases not even that was necessary. The minimum period (‘tariff’) of imprisonment was determined by the facts of the case but once that period expired release was at the discretion of the Parole Board. This led to ridiculous situations for prisoners, some with tariffs of a few months, whose cases were not considered by the Parole Board until well after their tariffs had expired, and who by then had not even begun the ‘offending behaviour’ courses, which, despite no concrete evidence that they actually work, are the system’s favoured yardstick for determining ‘reduction of risk’. In 2008, following legal challenges, the ‘dangerousness’ test was amended and the law changed so that anyone whose crime warranted a sentence of less than two years no longer received an indeterminate sentence; however this was not retrospective and lots of short-tariff ISPP prisoners continue to languish in gaol.
FRFI 211 October / November 2009
