If symptoms persist. . .

I WAS on duty for receptions at the prison last night. Receptions are to pris- ons what night merchandising is to supermarkets. New prisoners are brought fresh from the courts and dis- tributed round the establishment, each with his own expiry date. There was a new officer on the prison gate last night and he did not recognise me.

'Have you any ID, sir?' he asked.

'Do you take Access and Visa?' I replied.

He did, and I was reminded of a friend of mine who turned up in Sweden for a scientific congress without his passport. Immigration accepted his credit card instead — it helped that it was gold.

I was met by a nurse from the prison hospital.

'We've got six slashers for you tonight, sir,' he said. Slashers are wrist-cutters. 'We haven't got no room in the hospital for them, though.'

First, however, I had to 'go down the seg' — the segregation unit — to exam- ine four fighters and a prisoner on trans- fer from another prison who arrived with cuts, bruises and a swollen knee. He had had a slight contretemps with the warders in his previous prison, appar- ently.

'Could you put it down on the form he arrived here like that, sir?' said one of the warders. 'We don't want no trouble, do we, sir?' But I was rather under the impression that he was not averse to stir- ring up trouble for the other prison: there is no love lost between establish- ments, each of which thinks the others are not doing their job properly. The prisoner — who called me 'Boss' — con- firmed that his injuries were from the other prison.

Now it was time to examine the day's forensic harvest. I was accompanied by a female nurse who, I think, was not happy in her work. Compared with her face, granite was like foam rubber.

'Johnson, strip to the waist and stand in front of the doctor,' she shouted. 'No, not that close, three feet back.'

There passed before me the usual parade of pathetic, inadequate, innocent, guilty and evil humanity. My impression was strengthened that crime — at least in Britain — is caused by a slow-acting

virus (similar to HIV) which is transmit- ted to criminals by the tattooing needle: for all British criminals are tattooed.

A particularly unpleasant character, with a long and horrific record of vio- lence, stood before me. He chewed gum cockily, and answered my questions about his medical history with insolence. If ever there was a case for giving a man a pair of ill-fitting trousers which he had to hold up by hand, this was it.

'I shouldn't like to meet him on a dark night,' I murmured as he left.

'E's fuckin"orrible,' said the nurse judgmentally, as the social workers put it. A first-time prisoner appeared before me next, terrified and genuinely, in despair. I tried to be understanding, much to the disgust of the nurse — but it is not easy amid the echoing clatter of meal-times, shouted orders, arguments and Tannoy systems. I ordered that his clothes be taken from him and he be placed in a cell devoid of furnishings, so that he could not kill himself overnight. The doctor on duty next day could then deal with him as he saw fit. That, in our prisons, is what is called compassion.

Theodore Dalrymple