Someone tonight will hit someone over the head with a table leg
Last updated 13:07, Tuesday, 20 May 2008
ENSUITE rooms with TV, PlayStation games, pool table, gym, library, CCTV security and an aviary with birds of prey.
All surrounded by a 16ft 4in fence – and there is no-one trying to break in.
Over the fence a tennis ball comes flying, quadrupling in value as it hits the ground. For hidden inside are a few wraps of heroin. It ends up in the security office, along with a mobile phone found in a chair and a homemade weapon concealed in a light.
“It used to be that tobacco was currency in prison, now it is drugs,” said Clive Chatterton, who has been governor at Haverigg for two-and-a-half years, and began his career at Strangeways in 1975.
“When I joined the service 33 years ago, drugs were virtually non-existent, but now they appear to be the root of much evil,” he said. “Out of 630 prisoners last year, at one point 44 per cent were in for drug related offences.”
Haverigg offers a methadone programme in the hope of reducing the number of convicts re-offending on release – about two thirds nationwide.
“Many of these men come from broken homes. Their parents are addicts, they haven’t been to school and domestic violence is the norm,” said Mr Chatterton. “There’ll be someone in here tonight that hits someone over the head with a table leg because he can’t get a second helping. [Each prisoner has a food budget of £1.78 a day].
“You don’t just change someone like that overnight. We try to rebuild their lives with education.
“Staff should be role-models through their behaviour and attitudes. There was a time when they were forbidden to speak to the prisoners. Now they have good relationships and long may that last.”
There is a range of in-house training courses and jobs for inmates at Haverigg, including painting and decorating, bricklaying, site joinery, industrial cleaning, catering, woodwork, plumbing, mechanics and journalism.
A prison newspaper called The Seagull is distributed on the outside.
Prison spokesman Martin Jones said: “It’s about trying to create transparent fences, so they can see what’s going on in the community but the community is kept safe.
“Very few people commit crime because they are bad. It’s because of a need – a family to keep, a drug problem and no job. We’ve got to break that cycle by giving them a skill.”
A 28-year-old ‘lifer’ said: “I’ve been in since I was 16. It is hard. You work from 8.30 in the morning and you don’t take home a wage packet.
“But the hardest thing is not being able to go to the places you want to go.”
Fathers are encouraged to bond with their remote children by recording a story onto CD for them.
Librarian Jane McFie, one of the prison’s 360 staff, said: “It’s a good way of keeping family ties and teaching parenting skills. The mothers say it is the best present their kids have ever had.”
Mr Chatterton said: “It’s about making better citizens.
“He’s probably never read to his son before. But with a reaction like that, when he gets out he might think twice about going off to the pub and opt to read him a bedtime story instead.”
Since a new build opened in November, Haverigg can house 644 male category C prisoners. Only 84 of these are from Cumbria, despite there being 400 people from the county incarcerated across the country.
There are 64 Cumbrians in Durham Prison, while 64 County Durham prisoners are locked up at Haverigg.
Rooftop protests are common to show their frustration at being so far from home – just last week there were two.
“Different types of prisoners have different needs – baby units, maximum security, mental health requirements – and you have to concentrate resources.”
But Mr Chatterton has a vision. He wants to turn Haverigg into Britain’s first community prison. The plan, yet to be discussed with members of the Criminal Justice Board, is to house women and young offenders there as well as men.
“So we start to look after more of Cumbria’s offenders,” said Mr Chatterton. “If I release someone halfway through their drugs programme or course, it is easier for me to work with the Primary Care Trust, Learning and Skills Council and housing associations in Cumbria.
“There would be a substantial outlay needed initially and running costs would be high,” he admitted.
“The savings would come from reducing re-offending. If we can cut that by say half, think of the savings of 200 people not going through the criminal justice system.
“It also impacts on the next generation, as parents pass their values on. It is still only a vision, but if it attracted the support of Jack Straw – it could become a reality.”
