Education Is Subversive
In Prison – John Bowden
The role of teachers and educational
tutors employed by local colleges and contracted to work within the
prison system can be a conflicting and potentially very hazardous
one. Empowering prisoners with knowledge in an environment
intrinsically organised to disempower them can sometimes be a
dangerous activity.
Unlike the function and role of most
other types of staff working within prisons (guards, probation
officers, social workers and psychologists etc.) that revolve around
the containment, control and disempowerment of prisoners, teaching
within jails usually involves a relationship with prisoners that is
often inimical to that custody and control dimension of prisons. The
uniformed guards who basically control and maintain ‘discipline’ in
prisons instinctively understand the empowering influence of
education on prisoners, which is essentially why they view civilian
teachers working within prisons with suspicion and as an always
potentially weak link in the chain of security and ‘discipline’
(control), whose loyalty is always in question. There is a very
strong and all-pervading occupational culture amongst prison guards
that views any attempt to
empower and humanise those over whom they exact an absolute degree of
power as just another step to a liberalism that undermines
and weakens the basic function of the prison – punishment and
absolute control. It’s an attitude and culture that teachers working
within prisons are confronted by every day, as well as a balance of
institutional power firmly tipped in favour of the guards, who
charged with maintaining the physical security of the prison will
always inevitably label teachers who question their authority and
power as a ‘security risk’, which is a sure way of getting them
removed from the prison and recalled to a local college usually
desperate to protect and continue it’s contract with the prison
system.
Essentially, however, to usually
poorly-educated prison guards it’s the spectre of educated and
empowered prisoners that disturbs and angers those responsible for
maintaining and enforcing the ‘good order and discipline’ role of
prisons, and in the mini totalitarian world of prison the aphorism
“knowledge is power” is something clearly understood by those
keeping prisoners in a constant condition of absolute powerlessness.
The education department, or Learning
Centre at Shotts maximum-security prison in Lanarkshire, Scotland,
was, before the arrival of Kate Hendry in the summer of 2011, a place
of little inspiration or significance within the prison. The
curriculum and number of subjects available was basic and poor, the
classes poorly attended, most numbering less than a half-dozen
prisoners, and teachers always mindful of their lowly position within
the hierarchy of power within the prison. Education and classes were
always peripheral to the main daily activity of the jail: enforced
attendance in the cheap-labour work sheds where a more acceptable
‘work ethic’ could be instilled, the fundamental basis of prisoner
‘rehabilitation’ for those who have failed to accept their true place
in class society. Classes were usually attended by those desperate to
escape the mindless drudgery of the work sheds but unwilling to risk
a ‘disciplinary report’ and the removal of even the most basic of
‘privileges’ by outwardly refusing to ‘attend labour’. Classes were
usually a last option before the punishment of the removal of
recreation time with other prisoners or a spell in the very austere
lock-down ‘segregation unit’.
The function and purpose of the
Learning Centre at Shotts had been reduced to achieving little more
than the prison’s statutory obligation to provide at least the basic
rudiments of an education (the three Rs) to those prisoners who
needed and asked for it.
Kate Hendry’s impact on the Learning
Centre at Shotts prison could be fairly described, from the first
day, as seismic, simply because of her commitment and dedication to
providing a high quality of education to prisoners, something her
colleagues in the Learning Centre, apart from the odd, isolated
individual, had long ago forsaken in the interests of just
supervising a class, not rocking the boat, and continuing to draw a
salary. Kate also pushed hard against the boundaries that restricted
the development of the Learning Centre, the institutional culture of
control and ‘dynamic security’, that which says prison security is
not just about bars, walls, lock and keys, but also about the control
of prisoners, both physically and psychologically, and the treating
with suspicion of anyone who enters and works with the prison who
might threaten or challenge that concept of ‘security’. Kate
certainly did that with her uncompromising belief in and commitment
to the educational and intellectual integrity of the Learning Centre,
and her attempt to involve her chief employer, Motherwell College,
far more closely in the activity and range of classes provided by the
Learning Centre, thereby strengthening its independence from the
restricting influence of the prison’s management and their uniformed
guards who believe prisoners should be watched, controlled and
counted, not educated to a point where they might challenge the
authority and legitimacy of the regime inflicted on them. An educated
convict is a dangerous convict in the eyes of most jailers.
Her achievements within her first
twelve months of working at the prison were considerable. She created
a high-quality, award winning national prisoners’ art magazine based
at Shotts. She formed a prisoners/students representative forum with
direct input into discussions and decisions influencing the
management and quality of the Learning Centre. Virtually
single-handedly she created a new library in the jail, where before
there existed just a few shelves of pulp fiction and true crime books
in an almost inaccessible area of the prison for prisoners. She
organised a “Cuba Week”, featuring Cuban music, art and films,
and a talk from a representative of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. She
was in the process of organising a “Writers in Prison” week,
looking at the lives and writing of prisoners of conscience from
around the world, before the events that were to lead to her
exclusion from the prison unfolded. For the relatively brief period
of time that she worked at the prison she created a dynamic in the
Learning Centre that was empowering and inspiring, and revealed the
true potential of education as a means of transforming the lives of
prisoners in a fairly revolutionary way.
I had attended classes in the prison a
short while before Kate began working there and had attempted to
organise a ‘debate’ class, encouraging prisoners who attended to
learn the skills and confidence of public speaking and debate,
something difficult for individuals whose self-esteem has been
virtually destroyed by years, and often lifetimes of brutal
institutionalisation. The class became a sort of organisational
nucleus for events like a large debate held in the prison chapel and
attended by prisoners throughout the jail, all debating the topic,
“Alternatives to Prison”, which a guard at the back of the chapel
taking notes would subsequently become an ‘entry’ in my security file
presented to the parole board, that claimed I had simply used “as a
platform for his latest political views”. Even before Kate’s
arrival in the Learning Centre at Shotts my presence and influence
there was perceived as in some way ‘subversive’ and probably
motivated by intention simply to create disruption and discontent
within the jail.
My initial impression of Kate was
unfortunately coloured by prejudice and suspicion and so I viewed her
a s a middle-class liberal probably driven by personal ambition, not
the empowerment of my brother prisoners. I was wrong. I eventually
collaborated with her on a number of projects within the Learning
Centre that were probably viewed by the jail’s administration as
dangerously ‘left-wing’ and potentially threatening in terms of the
effect they might have had on the intellectual confidence and
increased self-esteem of prisoners. Over time the intellectual and
political relationship I formed with Kate would be interpreted by
some guards and jail managers at Shotts as a ‘security risk’ and
justification for her removal from the prison. Two events probably
became the catalysts for the process that would lead not only to her
exclusion from the jail but a deliberate attempt by the
administration to destroy her professionally and personally. The
first was my openly confronting a delegation of Turkish prison
officials being taken on a guided tour of the prison and its Learning
Centre by the jail governor and an E.U. Official. Prior to their
arrival Kate had made known her views about the visit and how it was
legitimising and lending respectability to probably the most brutal
prison system in the so-called developed world. She was therefore
viewed as complicit in my attempt to embarrass the visitors by
confronting them with their verified record of human rights abuse.
The second event was clearly the most
critical one, revealing as it did something about Kate’s true loyalty
in the eyes of the prison guards and clearly marking her out for
removal from the jail as a consequence. Guards supervising the
Learning Centre had obviously been told to ‘keep an eye’ on certain
prisoners who attended classes ans restrict as much as possible their
movement around the centre. I was in no doubt that I was one of the
prisoners being more carefully watched.
One morning a young and particularly
over-zealous guard decided to interpret the instruction to ‘keep an
eye’ on me as probably a license to put me on a disciplinary charge
for whatever he liked. He decided to ‘nick’ me for smoking in the
Centre’s tea break area. Not a single one of the twenty or so
prisoners also in the area at the time saw me smoking, neither did
the guard’s own colleague who was also carefully watching those
prisoners, including me. The guard’s action quickly created an
atmosphere of anger amongst both prisoners and teachers in the
Centre, although the later had long ago learned never to take a
prisoner’s side in a dispute with guards and risk professional
suicide as far as continuing to work in any prison was concerned.
Kate, however, was not so constrained and she directly approached the
guard and expressed her unease about what appeared to be my
victimisation. By appearing to openly take the side of a prisoner
against a guard, Kate would provoke an immediate and total hardening
of attitude against her by those who ran the prison. Her position
wasn’t helped by the official perception of the prisoner that she
appeared to align herself with – a long-time “subversive” and
“disruptive influence” in the prison.
I would subsequently be cleared of the
charge the guard had invented against me by a prison disciplinary
hearing, but for Kate the nightmare was about to begin.
The guard that Kate had confronted in
my defence submitted a “security intelligence report” to the
prison’s security department alleging that Kate was involved in an
“inappropriate relationship” with me and was therefore a
“security risk”. A prison manager then phoned Motherwell College
and claimed that Kate had become “emotionally involved” with a
prisoner and she was under suspicion. A manager at Motherwell College
then phoned Kate at home late one night whilst her partner and
children were present and informed her of the prison’s allegation.
She was also informed that when she returned to the jail the
following day she would be ‘interviewed’ by a security manager about
the allegation. She was duly summoned to the prison’s security
department the next day and in the presence of the Learning Centre
manager warned that prison staff suspected her of becoming
unprofessionally close with a prisoner and that “boundaries” had
been crossed. She strenuously denied the allegation and demanded to
be shown what real evidence existed to support it. Of course there
was none, so she was then warned that I was a “psychopathic” and
“subversive” prisoner who was simply “manipulating” her for
my own sinister and disruptive ends. She was then questioned about
some of the projects we had organised in the Learning Centre and told
that prison staff suspected my involvement in them suggested a
“politically subversive” dimension to the activities that could
impact on the “good order and discipline” of the prison. She was
finally warned that I was being closely watched by the guards so her
contact with me should be kept to the absolute minimum.
Of course the intention to remove Kate
from the prison remained and a second guard submitted a “security
intelligence report” on her, claiming she had taken me without
permission to the prison library and spent some time there alone with
me. This was a complete lie and related to a visit Kate, me and
another prisoner had made to the old prison library to assess what
books should be retained for the new library. She had obtained
permission to take myself and the other prisoner to the old library
which was situated in the busy administration area of the jail. The
guard who submitted the security report against Kate was actually
present with us in the library at the time.
On the 26th September 2012 a
known prisoner informer told a member of the teaching staff that Kate
had exchanged “love letters” with me and had witnessed us being
intimate with each other. The teacher reported the information to the
Learning Centre manager, who passed it on to senior prison
management. The following day Kate was denied entry to the prison and
Motherwell College told her that she would be placed before a college
disciplinary hearing on a charge of “gross misconduct”. I was
also seen by two prison managers and informed that I was barred from
the jail’s Learning Centre and my behaviour was under investigation.
No “love letters” were ever
discovered or produced as evidence against Kate or me, and when
closely questioned by security staff at the prison all of the
teaching staff said they had never witnessed or seen any
inappropriate behaviour between myself and Kate, and neither had any
of the guards who supervised the Learning Centre. The prison informer
was revealed to be someone with a history of serious mental illness
who had previously passed false information to prison staff.
Kate’s treatment deeply angered the
prisoners who attended the Learning Centre and who had benefited from
her dedication and tireless commitment to prison education, so they
organised and signed a petition in support of her and sent copies to
the Scottish Prison Service H.Q. And the local M.P. For the area. The
M.P. Pamela Nash, wrote to the governor of Shotts, Ian Whitehead,
expressing concern about Kate’s treatment and asking that the matter
be fully and promptly investigated. She also asked that copies of her
letter and Whitehead’s response to it be made available to all those
prisoners who had signed the petition. In his response Whitehead
tried to absolve himself or his staff of any responsibility for
Kate’s removal from her post at the prison and instead shifted the
blame and responsibility to Motherwell College, claiming they alone
had decided to withdraw her from the prison, and the responsibility
for any investigation subsequently lay with them.
A short while after that a story was
leaked to a Scottish tabloid that claimed there had been a “love
affair” between me and Kate, and inevitably I was described in the
usual folk devil way. The purpose of those who passed the story to
the tabloid was essentially to destroy Kate’s professional and
personal reputation.
Following Kate’s sacking from the
prison all her projects and work in the Learning Centre were closed
down and eradicated. What happened to Kate Hendry absolutely
epitomises the treatment of any member of staff working in prisons,
especially in a ‘non-custodial’ role, who dares to relate to
prisoners with humanity and solidarity. The position of civilian
teachers is particularly hazardous in that regard because of the
nature of their relationship with prisoners and the potentially
empowering effect their work has on prisoners, something prison
administrations would rather was purged from prisons for obvious
reasons. In many long-term jails the education department or Learning
Centre is the one place where its possible to effect a change in the
relationship of power between prisoner and jailer, as well as
returning some semblance of self-respect and intellectual integrity.
That is a spectre that unnerves those employed to subjugate and
disempower prisoners, and their deepest wrath is reserved for those
actively trying to make that spectre a living reality.
John Bowden
6729
HMP Shotts
Canthill Road
Shotts
Lanarkshire
Scotland
ML7 4LE
