Vol. 81/No. 4 January 23, 2017
Prisoners in UK protest inhuman conditions
The biggest eruption took place at Her Majesty’s Prison in Birmingham Dec. 16, involving some 600 inmates. Guards withdrew from four wings as prisoners took control for 12 hours. It reportedly started when a guard was overpowered and his keys seized, allowing inmates to move between wings.
Special “Tornado Teams” of guards and riot police were brought to suppress the protest. Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss said the prisoners would “face the full force of the law” and 550 inmates were sent to other prisons.
“They cancel gym all the time, the showers are cold, the food is crap, the heating is never on and we never get our mail on time,” said a prisoner who called the Birmingham Mail during the incident.
Similar actions took place at Bedford prison Nov. 6 and Swaleside Dec. 23, with smaller incidents reported at other facilities over recent months.
Many press reports referred to the protests as “rioting” and “rampaging.” Three Birmingham prisoners were reportedly taken to the hospital, including one with a fractured jaw and broken eye socket, but there were no reports of injured guards. Prisoners there lit fires and destroyed some files, reported the Guardian.
Lockdowns were an issue at all three prisons. The Swaleside protest started after guards seized some inmates’ possessions, following objections by prisoners who would be locked in their cells at Christmas, the BBC reported.
A government survey found 38 percent of young adult prisoners are locked up for more than 22 hours a day. “If you are telling people they will spend 23 out of 24 hours a day locked in basically a toilet, then you’re breeding a lot of boredom and frustration,” Andrew Neilson, a spokesperson of the Howard League for Penal Reform, told the BBC Nov. 7.
Bedford prison is overcrowded. It was built for 322 prisoners, but houses 495. Another sign of deteriorating conditions is the inmate suicide rate, which is more than 10 times higher than the general population. Suicides reached a new high in 2016, 102 as of Nov. 28.
Drug use is widespread. A Birmingham prisoner told the Mail there had been two deaths from a potent form of synthetic marijuana in the two weeks before the protest.
From April 2015 to March 2016 there were 22,195 assaults by prisoners on fellow inmates, reported the Ministry of Justice, an increase of 31 percent over the previous year.
Nearly 12,000 prisoners work at prison jobs, earning an average of £10 ($12) a week, and as little as £4.
On Nov. 3, Truss announced plans to hire 2,500 guards and build two new prisons, increasing capacity by 10,000. Some 7,000 guard positions were eliminated in budget cuts in recent years. The Prison Officers Association uses the rise in violence to campaign for more guards. It staged a walkout Nov. 15.
Richard Burgon, the Labour Party shadow justice secretary, has backed the guards.” So did the Morning Star, which reflects the views of the Communist Party. “Securing the necessary level of well trained, well treated and well paid staff is [an] urgent requirement,” the paper editorialized Dec. 24. “Prison officers will need and deserve our support and solidarity in 2017.”
Three former ministers — Kenneth Clarke (Conservative), Jacqui Smith (Labour) and Nicholas Clegg (Liberal Democrat) — had a different approach. In a joint letter to the London Times Dec. 22 they said that “to restore order, security and purpose to our jails,” prisoner numbers need to be cut by half.
They traced the rise in the prison population to 1993, when Conservative Home Secretary Michael Howard coined the phrase “prison works.” Numbers in England and Wales increased on his watch from under 45,000 to more than 61,000 in 1997. The subsequent Labour government outdid the Conservatives, adding another 23,000.
The prison population peaked in 2012 and has since declined slightly. Today, over 85,000 are imprisoned in England and Wales, and an additional 7,500 in Scotland and 1,600 in Northern Ireland.
While fights can be waged to break down barriers between inmates and the outside world, the capitalist prison system can’t be reformed in the interests of working people.
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