THE WORST DAY OF THE YEAR
Christmas in prison: Elizabeth Noel on the
time and place where the turkey is rubber, the pud plastic and the anti-suicide team busy
WHEN I WISHED the inmates in Worm- wood Scrubs a happy Christmas, I never found it easy to summon up any conviction. Last year, as I set off on leave, I was relieved to be going back outside to my world, where we can say 'Happy Christmas' to each other and mean it. Inside, the replies were always the same. Tat chance of that in here, Miss', `I wish they'd just not bother', 'Worst fuck- ing day of the year' (usually followed by an apology for the expletive). After the New Year, I asked a prisoner how he'd got on. He looked mournfully at me. His cellmate had spent the whole day in tears; even the suicide prevention team had failed to cheer him up.
Keep all that in mind when you read articles in the tabloids complaining that Britain's prisoners will be living high off the hog this festive season. The news that inmates at Whitemoor regularly supped on lobster bisque and cutlets was greeted with fury and indignation at the time, but I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of prisoners will not be enjoying the Whitemoor diet this festive season.
In most prisons, someone will go to the trouble of putting up a Christmas menu. To a casual observer, it might seem very much the same fare that the patrons of the Savoy will be enjoying at a high price. In reality, even Christmas lunch on the unfin- ished QE2 would have been more luxuri- ous. There will be turkey certainly, but we are not talking about plates heaped with freshly carved bird surrounded by crisp roast potatoes and glistening redcurrant jelly. Christmas dinner in prison consists, as one inmate put it, of 'a paper hat, a piece of rubber turkey, and a slice of plas- tic Christmas pud — all of it past sell-by', Prepared earlier in the day and stored in catering trolleys, by the time it reaches the wings it will be standard institutional fare, bearing a resemblance to the real article only by name.
In Wormwood Scrubs, there is no ques- tion of prisoners enjoying their Christmas dinner together at cheerfully decorated tables. They will eat 'banged-up' — locked in their cells — although they are allowed to share the occasion with a couple of friends. But in a Victorian prison cell three is a crowd, and the host may have to invite one of them to use the lavatory as a seat.
With the best will in the world, the most dedicated and humane prison staff can only produce a grim parody of the seasonal spir- it. Let there be no misunderstanding — at Christmas, prisoners suffer. Even though the officials put on an air of enforced jolli- ty, prisoners are inevitably reminded of the harm they have done — to their families, to themselves, and, one hopes, to their vic- tims. This may take the form of self-pity, but in some cases, it may open a path to repentance. Outside prison, New Year res- olutions are a family joke. In prison, they can sometimes be sincere.
During a prison Christmas, the profes- sional rehabilitators — the tribe of psychol- ogists, therapists and probation officers are safely out of the way, leaving the inmates with plenty of time for their own reflections. Christmas is quite properly the season of the prison chaplain. Around 25 December, a good chaplain will find that even the bolshies and the bullies are a little more receptive.
He can remind them that even in a prison cell Christmas means new hope and a new beginning. This is not an easy pro- cess, he will say, but hard road though it be, it lies open to all. The greatest kings and the most wretched villains all have to go on the same arduous pilgrimage before kneeling in front of the Christ child.
Christmas is a time to encourage prison- ers to begin that journey, that process of self-renewal. Sometimes it works. I remem- ber one inmate — 'I'm not a religious man myself — who was surprisingly positive about the Christmas church service: 'You know, I think I learned something there.' Hardly a Damascene conversion, but a flicker nonetheless.
Of course all this religiosity sits uncom- fortably with the gloomy statistics of prison and crime. Most prisoners are inadequates, sociopaths, serial re-offenders. A great deal of time and trouble is taken to convince them of the error of their ways, and much of it is wasted. The prison system is a mon- ument to human folly and official failure.
But Christmas is not the moment to dwell on folly, failure or statistics. At Christmas, we encourage hope to defy facts. That is why we allow prisoners their Christmas dinner with a few festive trim- mings. It may be a poor imitation, but it will help to remind them that they are not entirely cut off. And there is no danger that it will lull them into a false sense of well- being. The relatively small sum of taxpay- ers' money that is spent providing prisoners with a little Christmas cheer is not wasted.
Elizabeth Noel is a former civil servant. She is writing a book on prisons. She will fight Sedgefield as Tory candidate against Tony Blair in the next election.
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