Open Prisons

The story about open prisons to be found on the front page of today's Scotsman made interesting reading.

Two years ago PEP inherited the services of the former Muirhouse Six Circle. One such service was to provide a 'training for freedom' placement for John Bowden, then held in HMP Saughton.
We worked with John for about 18 months (without much trouble) during which period he qualified to teach adult literacy and was a 'hit' with his students.

After he left, we took another trainee but he was withdrawn when the programme was 'pulled' from Edinburgh and relocated to Shotts.

It was an interesting experiencence working with John and Alex. They had to follow a strict regime 'outside'. They had to make sure they traveled on the same bus morning and evening. They weren't allowed to talk to people on the bus as the authorities could be observing them without their knowledge and, if caught, their prospect of freedom would be compromised.

They couldn't vary their routes, weren't allowed to take anything into the prison (presumably in case they tried to smuggle in drugs or weapons) - I didn't fancy the regime myself: anybody who thought they had it 'easy' were fooling themselves but I didn't have much sympathy either - they were on the final stages towards release after what must have been serious crimes (we weren't told the details, only that they had both murdered) and it seemed important to me that they could handle these comparitively small constraints without 'losing' it.

What was also interesting was different people's reactions: one female member of staff, in particular, was horrified at working with either man: she asked for a lot of training in working with difficult people and self defence (which she got) but others seemed to sympathise with them as victims...some were just plain watchful, others showed no difference in their attitudes...

One thing was for absolutely sure though: both were heavily institutionalised and irrespective of any training for freedom they did it was unlikely either would find 'freedom' easy or threat-free even though both apparently longed for it.

So today's conclusion that 'open' prisons aren't working isn't much of a surprise - the whole concept is an oxymoron. On my (admittedly) limited experience, once somebody has spent a very long time in jail then (unless they are exceptional individuals) it's not very likely they will ever be free mentally, emotionally or empathetically again.
And that seems as bad a punishment as could ever be dreamed up by Man.