In 2019 I was sentenced to an eight year determinate prison term for breaches of family court orders. During my time in HMP Lindholme I became aware of the Lammy Report and the prison’s failure to implement recommendations aimed at preventing abuse of the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) system. However, it wasn’t until the Baroness Casey report into the Met Police after the tragic murder of Sarah Everard and its claim that the Met police was not only institutionally homophobic and misogynist but also institutionally racist that I was inspired to speak out on the point that the Prison Service is no less institutionally racist than the police.
Baroness Casey’s report came out at the same time that I had been placed on report, also known as a nicking, for making an accusation that a serving officer was a racist. As well as facing the adjudication (nicking), I also lost all privileges within the IEP system, which is supposed to reward positive behaviour. The charges were subsequently dropped because I highlighted the fact that it is not an offence to make an accusation of racism, but it was too late as I’d already been punished for something I had every right to do.
I began to trace back the numerous incidents of racism I had faced and started to see a stark theme. In 2021 I made a complaint about a senior officer who had made degrading racially offensive remarks about his belief that the size of black men’s genitalia was the only positive thing about being a black man. Even though this incident was investigated by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, who upheld my complaint, and made recommendations to the prison, nothing was done to change the culture.
A similar thing had happened in early 2021 while I was on remand at HMP Preston and was the victim of a racially motivated attack by officers. The prison did everything in its power to prevent me exercising my right to report the attack to the police and, when it was finally reported, did nothing to bring the culprits to justice and, in fact, never interviewed me and even recorded that the attack had taken place on the wrong date. Baroness Casey stated that an element of institutional racism was that people from particular races are not served due to a systemic structure in place that rests on a culture aimed at subjugation and exclusion. This is exactly what I faced when I tried to report to the police and at the time I felt that the police worked to protect the prison from the allegation of racial hatred and institutional racism, but until now I have not had the confidence to actually say this, and that is part of the problem.
The fact that so many black prisoners are fearful to speak out or are not confident that their voices will be heard allows these abuses to flourish. In a December 2022 report by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons on ‘the experience of adult black male prisoners and black prison staff’, so many sentiments resonated with me. One prisoner said: ‘Certain staff make jokes about my skin, about how dark I am… When I get upset about this, I am the only one who will get in trouble.’ And, speaking about the excessive use of force, another black prisoner said: ‘If a white inmate and a black inmate react in the same way, they’ll say one is vulnerable and one is aggressive… they would class me as aggressive but the white one as vulnerable.’ Or: ‘If you review use of force incidents you will then realise really quickly that black prisoners are more likely to be dealt with heavy handedly.’
The Lammy Review 2017 showed that black people were more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, to plead guilty and to receive longer sentences, but it also showed that the IEP system in prisons was being used to punish black prisoners disproportionately. It recommended that every prison have an IEP forum made up of staff and white, black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller prisoners, to ensure the fairness and effectiveness of the Incentives policy, but in 2023 there is no hint of a forum where abuses of the policy can be aired and as a result the culture of racism flourishes in prison.
The Incentives scheme is there to incentivise positive behaviour and therefore meant to be a powerful tool for rehabilitation, but it is being used to punish those who speak out about the institutional racism that is inbuilt into the culture of prison life in Britain.
Elavi Dowie (A0444EF)
HMP Lindholme, Bawtry Road, Hatfield Woodhouse, Hatfield, Doncaster DN7 6EE
Following FRFI’s publication of Elavi’s earlier article, British prisons: broken system or perfect business model? on our website, we understand that the prison has banned him from receiving copies of FRFI. We have, of course, written to the prison to complain about this censorship and suggest that readers do the same.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 294, June/July 2023
