12 ms·

HM Prison – A Survival Guide (2015)

192 points by asymmetric 9y ago

tristor 9y ago
This was a fascinating read, especially as an American who is not entirely familiar with some of the slang terms. I had to look a few things up, but it was worth the time.
- Allower 9y ago
  FYI - using 'Her Majesty's' is foolish and embarassing
- njs12345 9y ago
  If you enjoyed this you might enjoy Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries - he was a British politician jailed for perjury in the 2000s who wrote up his time inside: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prison-Diary-1-Hell/dp/0330418599 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prison-Diary-1-Hell/dp/0330418599
  - celticninja 9y ago
    Find a torrent of the book if you really want to read it don't go giving Archer any money.
    - vixen99 9y ago
      Archer has sold 330 million copies of his books and thus has no pressing need for money. That however is no excuse for encouraging someone to steal from a writer however successful. What else would you encourage people to thieve and from whom? Anyone who's been to prison?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - alex_hitchins 9y ago
        I'd buy Jonathan Aitken's book... (A fellow Tory jailbird). I do believe Aitken has somewhat reformed. Archer, not so much. Edit to say that I agree with your point that theft is theft.
      - jmnicolas 9y ago
        330 millions copies ? Let's say for the thought experiment that it was sold only on the European continent (including Russia), it would mean that one in two people living in Europe bought a copy. I find it hard to believe !
        ratherbefuddled 9y ago
        Not this particular novel, he has written dozens.
        janekm 9y ago
        He’s written quite a bit more than one book (over 25). Sales are >250 million according to his website. His books are practically their own genre in the UK, if second hand shops are anything to go by.
        celticninja 9y ago
        He also said he raised £52 million for Iraqi Kurds a figure that KPMG said was bullshit. So I would not put too much faith in anything that he says.
      - celticninja 9y ago
        I didn't say that you should steak from someone just because they had been to prison. I suggested stealing from Jeffrey Archer because he is a bit of a cunt who has a very chequered history with the truth and is as dodgy now as he was in the past. Most recently he was likely involved in financing an attempted coup in Equitorial Guinea. Sometimes stealing is ok, in a world where not everything is black and white an inability to distinguish grey is a flaw.
        Boothroid 9y ago
        Relevant: https://hooktube.com/watch?v=pssI1ZwzcmQ https://hooktube.com/watch?v=pssI1ZwzcmQ
    - alex_hitchins 9y ago
      If you like UK slang, look up what 'An Archer' is. Still hear this used today and it never fails to make me smile.
      - Joeboy 9y ago
        I think this might actually be hard to google. An archer is £2000, the amount Conservative Party deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer was caught paying a prostitute to keep quiet about his allegedly being a client of hers. I first heard this usage on The New Statesman (the Rick Mayall TV comedy), but it may have originated elsewhere.
  - jackhack 9y ago
    I would heartily recommend "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass" by Dr. Theodore Dalrymple. It gives keen insight into the cultural mindset of victimization that produces the persistent underclass. From the overview: "Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives."
    - influx 9y ago
      Isn't this self contradictory? Instead of taking personal responsibility for a failed set of values, instead the author blames an "elite culture searching for victims".
      - thanatropism 9y ago
        This "everyone has ultimate personal responsibility" way of thinking is uniquely American as far as I can see. Even without giving much leeway to self-victimization politics, analysis leads clearly to (1) you not being a coherent agency, often getting besides yourself or outside of your mind; or even not being the same person who shoplifted as a teen and (2) you been in many important ways a drop in an ocean, an atom of mass being. Of course individuality plays a very important role in the Enlightenment kind of rational civilization we strive for, but it doesn't mean non-individuality ("dividuality" and "collectivity") are not huge aspects of how we live. As Alain de Botton once put it, in England the poor are "unfortunates", in America they're losers. In Dalrymple's world, elites have a duty to set the tone and the agenda; and they are instead shirking from making judgement calls and saying "good is good, bad is bad".I don't agree much (we have elites telling us how to think as it is), but he points in the general direction of something without hitting the bullseye.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
panic 9y ago
For more cheery prison reading, here's an article from a reporter who worked undercover as a guard at a private US prison: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer/ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-pris.... IMO, the whole idea of prisons is inherently inhumane. We've really got to do better.
- keiferski 9y ago
  I've always held to the "Sin City"[1] philosophy: society's needs change over time, while people fundamentally don't. The existence of prison is just a failure of society to accommodate the wide variety of human natures. Obviously this brings up questions of the "dangerous to society" variety, but a minuscule percentage of prisoners are dangerous psycho killers. [1] Most people think Marv is crazy, but I don't believe that. I'm no shrink and I'm not saying I've got Marv all figured out or anything, but "crazy" just doesn't explain him. Not to me. Sometimes I think he's retarded, a big, brutal kid who never learned the ground rules about how people are supposed to act around each other. But that doesn't have the right ring to it either. No, it's more like there's nothing wrong with Marv, nothing at all--except that he had the rotten luck of being born at the wrong time in history. He'd have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody's face. Or in a roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him. They'd have tossed him girls like Nancy, back then.
  - Koshkin 9y ago
    > a failure of society to accommodate the wide variety of human natures The raison d'être of the society (and the state) is not to "accommodate" anything, especially not some particular aspects of human nature, but rather to suppress them, limit the "natural" freedoms -- in order to create a semblance of order and harmony among humans, which, in particular, makes it easier to control (and protect) them.
    - _jal 9y ago
      Oof. That is one view. There are others, that tend to note that society exists without state institutions - in fact, society is a necessary precondition to a state. Some of these other views don't credit 'society' as something with a will or a reason, simply as an emergent property. That's not to say 'society' doesn't cause things to happen, but it does imply disagreement with the parent comment. I absolutely agree that states are primarily instruments of suppression and coercion. I just think that equating state and society is not only incorrect, but also heads down a potentially dangerous path. Societies emerge from being social animals in proximity, states emerge from negotiations, coercion, or some combination thereof.
hackermailman 9y ago
Interesting system where you can bring your own things to prison instead of being forced to buy 300% price increased items from the prison commissary in N. America like clothing, fans, radios. System here is very different in other ways such as being in a 200+ inmate dorm is the standard instead of cells, and there's dozens of rules set by inmates none of which were in this guide. You also get a 'prison consultant' if you can in the US if you are pleading guilty, they help you choose your own prison as part of the plea deal such as Madoff who's prison lets him teach other inmates economics.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  You can bring some items, but you couldn't bring a telly etc. There was talk a while back about banning books being sent to prisioners, not sure what logic was used for that one. I haven't been to prison in the UK or the US however what I've seen of both, the US system seems straight up about making money over anything else. I'd hope the UK system isn't this way although I fear it likely is going that way.
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    This manual indicates the UK prison system is much more like the US system than I expected. e.g. shared prison cells.
    - t90fan 9y ago
      thats more an artefact of the fact that most of our prisons were built in the 1800s. 2 in a cell is common. Until the 90s they never had indoor plumbing either, only buckets in the cells. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slopping_out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slopping_out
      - alex_hitchins 9y ago
alex_hitchins 9y ago
Can I ask anyone who found this book useful/interesting buy a copy? I am going to, it will make a big difference to someone. Possibly you one day.
- movedx 9y ago
  Done.
abetusk 9y ago
At the end of this book there's a list of relevant links. Does anyone have such a list relating to the US prison system?
antiphase 9y ago
Kick someone's ass the first day, or become someone's bitch.
- pacaro 9y ago
  The more reasonable advice I was given was “keep to yourself when possible, lower your normal speaking tone by an octave”
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I was to be firm but fair. Of course, I had the firearms. I was a transportation officer/chaser for a military detention facility. I've known a bunch of people who were on the other side and the common takeaway is, 'Do your own time.'

192 points by asymmetric 9y ago

This was a fascinating read, especially as an American who is not entirely familiar with some of the slang terms. I had to look a few things up, but it was worth the time.

Allower 9y ago
FYI - using 'Her Majesty's' is foolish and embarassing
njs12345 9y ago
If you enjoyed this you might enjoy Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries - he was a British politician jailed for perjury in the 2000s who wrote up his time inside: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prison-Diary-1-Hell/dp/0330418599 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prison-Diary-1-Hell/dp/0330418599
- celticninja 9y ago
  Find a torrent of the book if you really want to read it don't go giving Archer any money.
  - vixen99 9y ago
    Archer has sold 330 million copies of his books and thus has no pressing need for money. That however is no excuse for encouraging someone to steal from a writer however successful. What else would you encourage people to thieve and from whom? Anyone who's been to prison?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - alex_hitchins 9y ago
      I'd buy Jonathan Aitken's book... (A fellow Tory jailbird). I do believe Aitken has somewhat reformed. Archer, not so much. Edit to say that I agree with your point that theft is theft.
    - jmnicolas 9y ago
      330 millions copies ? Let's say for the thought experiment that it was sold only on the European continent (including Russia), it would mean that one in two people living in Europe bought a copy. I find it hard to believe !
      - ratherbefuddled 9y ago
        Not this particular novel, he has written dozens.
      - janekm 9y ago
        He’s written quite a bit more than one book (over 25). Sales are >250 million according to his website. His books are practically their own genre in the UK, if second hand shops are anything to go by.
        celticninja 9y ago
        He also said he raised £52 million for Iraqi Kurds a figure that KPMG said was bullshit. So I would not put too much faith in anything that he says.
    - celticninja 9y ago
      I didn't say that you should steak from someone just because they had been to prison. I suggested stealing from Jeffrey Archer because he is a bit of a cunt who has a very chequered history with the truth and is as dodgy now as he was in the past. Most recently he was likely involved in financing an attempted coup in Equitorial Guinea. Sometimes stealing is ok, in a world where not everything is black and white an inability to distinguish grey is a flaw.
      - Boothroid 9y ago
        Relevant: https://hooktube.com/watch?v=pssI1ZwzcmQ https://hooktube.com/watch?v=pssI1ZwzcmQ
  - alex_hitchins 9y ago
    If you like UK slang, look up what 'An Archer' is. Still hear this used today and it never fails to make me smile.
    - Joeboy 9y ago
      I think this might actually be hard to google. An archer is £2000, the amount Conservative Party deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer was caught paying a prostitute to keep quiet about his allegedly being a client of hers. I first heard this usage on The New Statesman (the Rick Mayall TV comedy), but it may have originated elsewhere.
- jackhack 9y ago
  I would heartily recommend "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass" by Dr. Theodore Dalrymple. It gives keen insight into the cultural mindset of victimization that produces the persistent underclass. From the overview: "Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives."
  - influx 9y ago
    Isn't this self contradictory? Instead of taking personal responsibility for a failed set of values, instead the author blames an "elite culture searching for victims".
    - thanatropism 9y ago
      This "everyone has ultimate personal responsibility" way of thinking is uniquely American as far as I can see. Even without giving much leeway to self-victimization politics, analysis leads clearly to (1) you not being a coherent agency, often getting besides yourself or outside of your mind; or even not being the same person who shoplifted as a teen and (2) you been in many important ways a drop in an ocean, an atom of mass being. Of course individuality plays a very important role in the Enlightenment kind of rational civilization we strive for, but it doesn't mean non-individuality ("dividuality" and "collectivity") are not huge aspects of how we live. As Alain de Botton once put it, in England the poor are "unfortunates", in America they're losers. In Dalrymple's world, elites have a duty to set the tone and the agenda; and they are instead shirking from making judgement calls and saying "good is good, bad is bad".I don't agree much (we have elites telling us how to think as it is), but he points in the general direction of something without hitting the bullseye.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

panic 9y ago

For more cheery prison reading, here's an article from a reporter who worked undercover as a guard at a private US prison: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer/ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-pris.... IMO, the whole idea of prisons is inherently inhumane. We've really got to do better.

keiferski 9y ago
I've always held to the "Sin City"[1] philosophy: society's needs change over time, while people fundamentally don't. The existence of prison is just a failure of society to accommodate the wide variety of human natures. Obviously this brings up questions of the "dangerous to society" variety, but a minuscule percentage of prisoners are dangerous psycho killers. [1] Most people think Marv is crazy, but I don't believe that. I'm no shrink and I'm not saying I've got Marv all figured out or anything, but "crazy" just doesn't explain him. Not to me. Sometimes I think he's retarded, a big, brutal kid who never learned the ground rules about how people are supposed to act around each other. But that doesn't have the right ring to it either. No, it's more like there's nothing wrong with Marv, nothing at all--except that he had the rotten luck of being born at the wrong time in history. He'd have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody's face. Or in a roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him. They'd have tossed him girls like Nancy, back then.
- Koshkin 9y ago
  > a failure of society to accommodate the wide variety of human natures The raison d'être of the society (and the state) is not to "accommodate" anything, especially not some particular aspects of human nature, but rather to suppress them, limit the "natural" freedoms -- in order to create a semblance of order and harmony among humans, which, in particular, makes it easier to control (and protect) them.
  - _jal 9y ago
    Oof. That is one view. There are others, that tend to note that society exists without state institutions - in fact, society is a necessary precondition to a state. Some of these other views don't credit 'society' as something with a will or a reason, simply as an emergent property. That's not to say 'society' doesn't cause things to happen, but it does imply disagreement with the parent comment. I absolutely agree that states are primarily instruments of suppression and coercion. I just think that equating state and society is not only incorrect, but also heads down a potentially dangerous path. Societies emerge from being social animals in proximity, states emerge from negotiations, coercion, or some combination thereof.

hackermailman 9y ago

Interesting system where you can bring your own things to prison instead of being forced to buy 300% price increased items from the prison commissary in N. America like clothing, fans, radios. System here is very different in other ways such as being in a 200+ inmate dorm is the standard instead of cells, and there's dozens of rules set by inmates none of which were in this guide. You also get a 'prison consultant' if you can in the US if you are pleading guilty, they help you choose your own prison as part of the plea deal such as Madoff who's prison lets him teach other inmates economics.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
alex_hitchins 9y ago
You can bring some items, but you couldn't bring a telly etc. There was talk a while back about banning books being sent to prisioners, not sure what logic was used for that one. I haven't been to prison in the UK or the US however what I've seen of both, the US system seems straight up about making money over anything else. I'd hope the UK system isn't this way although I fear it likely is going that way.
- alkonaut 9y ago
  This manual indicates the UK prison system is much more like the US system than I expected. e.g. shared prison cells.
  - t90fan 9y ago
    thats more an artefact of the fact that most of our prisons were built in the 1800s. 2 in a cell is common. Until the 90s they never had indoor plumbing either, only buckets in the cells. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slopping_out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slopping_out
    - alex_hitchins 9y ago

alex_hitchins 9y ago

Can I ask anyone who found this book useful/interesting buy a copy? I am going to, it will make a big difference to someone. Possibly you one day.

movedx 9y ago
Done.

abetusk 9y ago

At the end of this book there's a list of relevant links. Does anyone have such a list relating to the US prison system?

antiphase 9y ago

Kick someone's ass the first day, or become someone's bitch.

pacaro 9y ago
The more reasonable advice I was given was “keep to yourself when possible, lower your normal speaking tone by an octave”
- KGIII 9y ago
  I was to be firm but fair. Of course, I had the firearms. I was a transportation officer/chaser for a military detention facility. I've known a bunch of people who were on the other side and the common takeaway is, 'Do your own time.'