Yer never going to change me

Such was the case with the edited collection, The Good Prison Officer, which vividly portrays insider perspectives from contributors who have experienced incarceration and those entrusted with the role of of prison officer.

I mused for a while on my past experiences of encounters with prison officers when visiting prisoners as part of through care contact. One memorable experience is perhaps illustrative of a positive and valued relational based meeting that helped to shift my own perspective on the role of prison officers in rehabilitative endeavours.

When I first met Finlay (not his real name) he entered the probation office looking like a prize fighter! I had read his copious case file and sighed heavily at his prolific offending history, mainly related to alcohol-fuelled assaults and driving offences.

His feisty demeanour felt very unsettling. “Yer never going to change me”, he said. “I never take s*** from anybody”.

He was facing yet another prison sentence for assaulting a police officer who had the temerity to question what he was doing in a stolen vehicle. In light of this inevitable outcome I prepared a pre-sentence report alluding to his impulsive immaturity but also his stated desire to take up boxing.

He was sentenced to a term of detention in a Young Offender Institution (YOI). I arranged to visit Finlay at the YOI soon after sentence. On arrival, I was informed rather brusquely that there was a prison officers’ meeting and the time of my appointment would be delayed.

I occupied my time, given the location, trying to spot the outline of the French coast across a becalmed English Channel.

When I re-entered the YOI I was surprised to be find myself talking to one of Finlay’s wing officers, who seemed to have a committed professional interest in his well-being. They both hailed from the same area of the country and I suggested to Finlay that he join our meeting, after we had discussed other through-care concerns.

“Oh you mean Mr M. He’s one of the decent screws here!”, Finlay said.

“How are you mate?”, Mr M. said on joining us. As he spoke, his observations seemed to resonate with Finlay. I surmised that the tough area each grew up in shaped their interaction in a way that I had until then underestimated.

Finlay’s tell-tale swagger seem to have lessened and his outlook appeared more thoughtful. When I stepped back into the main area of the YOI, a wholly different us-and-them masculinity was viscerally prevalent.

To my pleasant surprise, although on the margins of several disciplinary incidents during his sentence, Finlay emerged from the YOI for a short period on licence. It was clear that he had been pondering some of the conversations he had with Mr M. But the final appointment at the office was disappointingly missed. In light of his progress, any breach action seemed unnecessary.

Some weeks later I was driving in my local area when I spotted Finlay. “It’s Mike. Can we have a word?”, I shouted out. Finlay hot-footed it away. I parked up and, in a scene that resembled an out-take from the film Trainspotting ran to catch up with him. Breathless, I asked why he had legged it. The Law, he said, were after him, “I have to go, thanks Mike”.

On returning to the car, I discovered a parking ticket had been left on the windscreen. “Oh for F**** sake”, I muttered.

But then again, law enforcement is never quite cost-free.

Mike Guilfoyle is a retired probation officer.