Turnkey or Not

Tony Lévy

Description

A chance meeting on holiday in Majorca changed Tony Levy's life forever and launched him into a 25-year career in a job that he never would've considered previously: working in Her Majesty's Prison Service.This book catalogues Tony's personal experiences of working as a prison officer, from his early days at high-security HMP Pentonville to his final years in therapy-based HMP Grendon. Filled with interesting observations and incidences, hilarious wind-ups and memorable characters, this autobiography is the story of a journey, from the happiest days in what will always be a potentially volatile environment to a complete state of disillusionment as an 'old dinosaur' that no longer fitted into the modern prison service world.Tony gives an honest account of his feelings, as someone who would never be a yes man and toe the party line, in the face of a constantly changing environment that had become increasingly controlled by political correctness gone mad and by budgetary needs rather than human needs. He was a man who cared, and even though his heart was sucked out of his job, he never lost his dignity or respect. Most importantly, he would never allow himself to be reduced to just a turnkey.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 21 novembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908582614
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page

A TURNKEY OR NOT?




By
Tony Levy




Publisher Information

APEX PUBLISHING LTD
First published in 2011, by
Apex Publishing Ltd
PO Box 7086, Clacton on Sea, Essex, CO15 5WN
www.apexpublishing.co.uk

Digital edition converted and
Distributed in 2011 by
Andrews UK limited
www.andrewsuk.com

Copyright © 2011 by Tony Levy

The author has asserted his moral rights

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition, that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder.

Production Manager: Chris Cowlin




Prologue

A turnkey: that’s what the government wants; that’s what the Criminal Justice Agency wants; and that’s what the public think we are.
But we are not, or rather we were not. We used to use our initiative, employ common sense and make snap decisions, sometimes based on our gut feelings. We were decisive and were considered authoritarian but usually fair. We were the prisoners’ mothers, fathers, confidants, peers and even friends. Some looked up to us; some looked down on us. We were everyday men from the streets, mainly from a forces background (although, I hasten to add, I was not). We understood discipline and trained in a disciplined, regimented manner to enable us to maintain discipline and authority in very difficult conditions and situations. In other words, we were prison officers.
However, all has changed, because politics and money have got in the way. It’s no wonder that our prisons have become more violent and more dangerous for both prisoners and staff. Drugs are rife, and it appears that we’ve not only lost the battle but also given up the fight against it. Repeated legislation has taken all the rules away that enabled us to maintain discipline. Staff are demoralised and burnt-out by repeated change, and are fed up of hearing the now monthly cry of ‘budgetary cuts’.
So long as each establishment can tick all the right boxes, then the Criminal Justice Agency is content. As long as we continually prove that we’re doing what we claim to be doing, all are happy and content. So long as we continue to make budget cuts, our bosses leave us alone … until it all goes wrong, and it will.
Looking back, I loved my job as a prison officer, although probably at the time I didn’t realise it quite so much. I felt I was important, useful, respected. I wasn’t just a cog in a wheel; I was an essential part of the mechanism that made the wheel run smoothly. How I dealt with the prisoners, the visitors and my colleagues was important. Putting on the uniform didn’t make me a man; it wasn’t something to hide behind, but rather something to be seen.
Over the years, however, all that has been eroded away. Who now cares? Certainly not the government. Prisons are a necessary evil, but they’re also a good place to make budgetary cuts. They are the underbelly of a government department, to be ostracised when anything untoward becomes public and criticised when all is well. Nobody cares how the staff or prisoners are treated. Nobody cares about the substance anymore. All they care about is what’s on the outside of the tin, not what’s inside. It’s all a façade. All they want is turnkeys that follow the party line, don’t criticise, don’t think as individuals and don’t speak out. I am not, and never was, a turnkey, and I want to share my side of what being a prison officer was really like for the vast majority of prison officers.
It is April 2008 as I’m writing this, and I’ve just come to the end of a 25-year career in the prison service, after taking early retirement and leaving for pastures new. I’ve witnessed many interesting, amusing and potentially violent incidents during my time in the service, and along the way I’ve accumulated many anecdotes and amusing stories. I’d often thought that maybe I should put pen to paper and try to write about my experiences and inform the world of the reality of everyday prison life. However, like most people who’ve never written a book before, I didn’t know where to start, how to put it all together or how to get it published. I had no idea how long it would take or what to write about specifically, and I was worried that nobody would really be interested, so the project never got off the ground.
The idea was brought to the forefront of my mind, however, when one night I was watching a thriller on television.
The programme depicted a prison governor and his staff and the goings- on in the prison in a totally unrealistic light. Firstly, it showed a prison governor being decapitated. Now, despite many times wishing disasters to befall my various governors for a wide variety of reasons, I can’t remember one instance in which a governor was physically harmed, let alone decapitated, especially at the hands of his own staff. The most interesting feature of the early sequences in the programme was that the governor was collected from his prison in a chauffeur-driven Jaguar. Oh, if only that were true, I can hear 146 prison governors saying! The inaccuracies and lack of realism continued apace, until I simply couldn’t watch any longer. It gave a totally false picture of the modern prison service and was a gross misrepresentation of the work and attitude of prison officers in general. I don’t know how these programmes can be allowed to show such blatantly inaccurate material. Having said that, the real-life prison service probably wouldn’t capture the imagination of the viewing public, whereas sensationalism attracts high viewing figures.
I lay in bed later that night, my mind tracing back over the 25 years I’d spent in the prison service and the changes I’d witnessed, and I decided that maybe I should write that book after all and see if the reality of day- to-day prison life was of any interest to the public.
Several books have been written in the past, factual, fictional and semi- autobiographical, either about the prison service itself or about how certain individuals of national notoriety have spent their time in the confines of Her Majesty’s establishments. I would never dispute their versions of events and also fully understand that to sell a book as a commercial venture does require some literary licence, but their perceptions bear little resemblance to my own.
I spent my 25 years of service in four different establishments, all with differing regimes, as well as visiting many other prisons or working in them on what was called ‘detached duty’. While I’m sure that there were, and still are, many wanton acts of violence carried out in prisons, whether by prisoners against prisoners or by prisoners against staff and vice versa, given that we currently lock up over 78,000 prisoners throughout the 146 establishments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (the Scottish prison service is run as a completely separate system), the actual number of such incidents is quite small. I’m not making light of the importance or seriousness of any incidents that do occur, but in reality the vast majority of prison life is dull, boring routine, occasionally interspersed with short periods of serious and sometimes violent action and incidents. That said, there is no doubt that prison is becoming a more violent place - a reflection of society in general.
Certainly, if I were to tell you that prisoners were constantly running riot, shitting all over their cells, taking drugs, having sex, attempting to escape and smuggling in contraband, or that prison officers were systematically beating up prisoners, bringing in drugs and alcohol, providing any manner of illegal items, having illicit sex with prisoners and on the take, it would make for a great read or a good film, but it is far removed from my experiences and those of the vast majority of my former colleagues. I have therefore endeavoured to avoid any mention of these types of activities, except where they have particular relevance to the story.
I’ve witnessed and been involved in some extremely violent and potentially violent situations, and I’ve seen some horrendous injuries inflicted by prisoners on other prisoners, in some instances leading to the victim’s death. I’ve seen some of my colleagues being violently attacked by prisoners and, in some cases, by prisoners’ visitors. I’ve discovered prisoners hanging in their cells, unaware of the reasons for their actions, or having taken drug overdoses. I’ve been involved in dirty protests, mass sit-ins by prisoners and the aftermath of a prison riot. I’ve even been accused by an MP of treating Iraqi detainees inhumanely. I’ve been accused by some prisoners of racism, and I was subjected to disturbing threats by convicted IRA terrorists. I’ve been spat at by visitors, I’ve had my car vandalised while parked on prison premises, and I’ve been told by both prisoners and their visitors that they hope my family die of horrible diseases or are killed in car accidents.
Obviously, not all those involved in prisons are nice, honest, law- abiding citizens, but I can honestly say that throughout my life I’ve never treated any person, whether within the prison service or outside, in any manner that could be interpreted as less than professional.

I must say from the outset that during my 25-year career I have personally never witnessed any wanton acts of violence meted out by