Written on: Wednesday 19th February 2009

Out of sight, out of mind. It is a phrase that could have been invented to describe prison life. Once that steel door has slammed shut for the first time, you may as well no longer exist as far as the civilised world is concerned. Friends, family, girlfriends and business acquaintances; through every man’s life these come and go to a varying degree. Upon his incarceration, however, they mostly go. Such companions, hangers-on and well-wishers may start off with good intentions, but by the time a few weeks or months have elapsed, the letters, visits and fonecalls start to dry up. It was thus with great surprise that the inhabitants of Craiginches woke up this morning to discover that the entire country was suddenly fixated on their plight and that for one day only, The Lost Boys were very much in sight and in mind.
The first signs that someone – other than the screws – was watching our every move appeared in The Daily Record, which ran a story about the poor standard of laundry service provided by the jail. Apparently, this resulted in prisoners’ boxer shorts being lost in the wash, forcing them to have to wear their fellow cons’ kecks instead. It was flattering to know that the nation was choking on its cornflakes in righteous indignation over the whereabouts of my cum-stained CKs. It was also baffling however to think that The Daily Record was more concerned about my dirty underwear than my mum had ever been. Why had the national press taken it upon themselves to highlight this previously undocumented prison phenomenon? As a page-turner, the story must be right up there with The Plight Of Endangered Water Voles and Revised Wheelie Bin Collection Days.
But it wasn’t just the Record who wished to go on the record regarding the welfare of us poor prisoners. The Daily Telegraph had a similar tale of woe, focussing on the shocking standard of jail food. Coming from a broadsheet whose readers’ idea of slumming it is downgrading from Marks & Spencer to Waitrose, I found it comforting to know that they were thinking of me as they nibbled on their pain aux chocolates. What issue of prison life would the press decide to document next I wondered - the lack of conjugal visits? The paucity of silver cutlery and china teacups at mealtimes? The reason for the glut of seemingly random jail stories finally became apparent when I picked up The Press & Journal to be greeted by the headline ‘Inspector issues a damning verdict on Aberdeen Prison’. To celebrate the publication of the Prison Inspector’s report on Craiginches, the paper had devoted two pages to cataloguing the many woes to have afflicted what was apparently Scotland’s Shittest Jail.
It began: ‘The people of the north-east have been let down by “dreadful” conditions inside Aberdeen Prison – leading to more crime on the streets… Andrew McLellan found it was badly overcrowded, short of staff, had a “shocking” drugs problem, a building not fit for purpose, and “no chance” of any improvements being made…Conditions at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, meanwhile, were also criticised by Mr McLellan… “The conditions at Aberdeen Sheriff Court are disgraceful. Dramatic improvement is needed immediately.”’
Fair point, Mr McLellan, although it doesn’t require the title of Chief Prison Inspector to deduce that the Sheriff Court is a bit poopy. I was not exaggerating in a recent blog when I observed ‘The holding cells are a series of squalid concrete rooms, each barely bigger than a domestic bathroom. Inside them, up to ten prisoners at a time are crammed together to await their court appearances. In these grim, squalid dungeons, the talk is of slashings, beatings and stabbings.’ If the inspector had only bothered to read The Trash Whore Diaries like the rest of the SPS staff, he need never have set foot inside that filthy, not-fit-for-purpose prison.
The intense scrutiny of Craiginches wasn’t just contained to the print media. On the way to the Education Department after lunch, we passed two Scottish Television trucks in the yard, one fitted with a giant satellite dish for live broadcasts. At six o’clock, STV would be presenting a half hour news special from the beleaguered jail, boasting ‘unprecedented access’ to the prison that everyone was dissing. It was officially open season on Craiginches.
Although the bewildering barrage of media attention gave the cons something to speak about other than the usual drugs/violence/more drugs, we all knew that the ‘damning’ findings would not serve to better our existence. Even if the public were able to muster some sympathy for the inmates in Scotland’s worst jail, we would be out of mind (or maybe just off our minds) by the time the broadcast had ended. It was Comic Relief Day but without the red noses. Does anyone really think about those poor African villagers with no running water on the other 364 days of the year?
For the live broadcast, the STV anchorman was to be positioned in one of the prison halls, where he would link between pre-recorded sequences and live interviews with the governor and the Scottish Justice Secretary. Thankfully for them, the cons would be locked up at this time, thus preventing the show from degenerating into a raucous, expletive-laden PR disaster. Those gouching, gurning faces would be safely out of sight behind their doors. Of course, containing the threat provided no guarantees that the show would go off without a hitch. If there is one thing prisoners are good at, it’s being heard when not seen. To prevent a barrage of abuse from flooding through the cracks in the cell doors and drowning out the anchorman, the governor had sensibly opted to film the event in B-Hall, the smaller, more civilised of the two halls. B-Hall is where old lags who can’t stand the hustle and bustle of jail life go to die. Unlike its rowdy neighbour, A, B is devoid of hyperactive Young Offenders and newly-admitted junkies intent on booting in their doors as they sweat out the gear. To err on the side of caution, the governor also visited each cell in B-Hall at lunchtime and warned the inhabitants to behave. Nothing was being left to chance.
At six o’clock, as the cameras cut to the intrepid STV anchorman embedded deep in the bowels of Craiginches, the A-Hall cons cheered and booted their doors, the traditional way of acknowledging any shared TV moment such as a goal being scored in a live football match. For the next 30 minutes, we were treated to footage of prisoners fighting and getting caught passing drugs in the visit room. One of the screws showed off a cardboard box full of contraband that had found its way into the jail – mobile fones, syringes, screwdrivers and of course drugs. Much to the relief of the governor, the live sections passed without incident. The B-Hall cons, who had the power to sabotage the show, were as good as bad men can be. Just as I was starting to think they’d been spiked with double methadone and had all fallen asleep, the inmates finally found their voices as the anchorman was signing off, emitting a few belated whoops and cheers. Children and animals are regarded as the two biggest liabilities on live television. Convicts can safely be added as the third.
After the show had finished and we were unlocked for rec, I stepped out into the main hall of a jail that, according to the Prison Inspector, had a ‘shocking drug problem’. To the casual observer, surveying A-Hall, it would be easy to conclude that the Inspector had perhaps been egging it a bit when he made this claim. As far as the eye could see, there were no drugs or drug-related activity taking place, just a load of convicts running about and playing pool. Was it really that bad? ‘Here, Kai.’ A voice beckoned to me and I turned round to see a familiar jail face. ‘Kai, do you want a line of coke?’ I didn’t need to question the pope’s Catholicism or the bowel movements of bears in woods. If the Chief Prison Inspector had decreed this establishment to have a shocking drugs problem, then I would take it upon myself to clean the place up… by taking all the drugs myself. I followed the boy upstairs and we ducked into his cell. Inside, it was a veritable cave of iniquity. Coke, smack and hash lay on the worktop, as did the tools of the trade; clingfilm, tooters and scorched foil. The con tipped some light brown powder onto a Caramel wrapper and, clenching the tooter between his teeth, lay back on his bunk and lit it from underneath. He inhaled deeply. His padmate, who was already wasted, rummaged about in his socks for a while before eventually producing a knot of hash, which I gratefully accepted. I then proceeded to rack up two lines of ching, one for each of us. After polishing off the white powdery goodness, I thanked the pair for their hospitality and left them to polish off their brown powdery badness. Drug problem, what drug problem? Everything your habit needs can be found under one roof here at HMP Craiginches. No problem at all.
Of the many Craigie-centric reports to have surfaced in today’s press, the best one of all was not actually about drugs. Like all things concerned with Craigie, however, it came back to drugs in the end. Under the heading ‘Inmates vanish with savings scheme cash’, the Press & Journal reported: ‘Crafty prisoners signed up for savings accounts behind bars – then vanished when they were granted loans on the outside…Bill Harkis, of the North East Scotland Credit Union, said: “One or two of the prisoners ripped us off. They came out, got a loan and didn’t pay us back. It’s frustrating, but part of the credit union is dealing with financially excluded people. There’s a bit of a risk involved sometimes.”’ Bit of a risk? Lending money to prisoners in the expectation that they will pay it back is a banking decision that even the much-maligned Sir Fred Goodwin would baulk at. The folly of issuing sub-prime mortgages seems like a good bit of business compared to issuing credit to Craigie’s sub-primates. The report concluded ‘Some of the prisoners who took advantage of the system borrowed loans of up to £200 for white goods then failed to pay them back.’ White goods? So that’s what they’re calling crack cocaine these days.