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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 183 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 183, February 1995.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
I am writing this letter from my cell in prison. I am currently serving a four year prison sentence for a domestic incident. At this moment, the prison I was in previously, Everthorpe, is in its second night of rioting.
While there I made a number of complaints about the way heroin was so openly distributed in front of officers and other members of staff. At first I could not understand why this highly addictive drug seemed of little importance to the authorities and they did not seem to mind its presence. But after a while I realised this drug was keeping the inmates calm, thus making the authorities’ job easier for them.
It became obvious to me that working class lives mean nothing to these people. In fact I would go as far as to say that 60 percent of the inmates at our prison were on heroin yet, in August 1994, the governor made a statement claiming that there was not a drug problem at his prison.
In October 1994 two inmates escaped from their cells and used a home-made ladder to scale the prison wall. Once over the wall the ladder was abandoned. It was claimed that the inmates had used knotted bed sheets to scale the wall.
Once the rioting started the governor made a statement to the media saying he received no warning of this present riot situation. He must walk about with his eyes and ears closed.
At the beginning of 1994 there was some unrest in the prison resulting in 200 MUFTI (Minimum Use of Force Tactical Intervention) squad being brought in. As a result of that, inmates were kept locked in their cells for three days. There have been too many incidents to recall in the months I spent in that prison. I think it is about time people like prison governors came clean to the people who pay their huge salaries.
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