I arrive at prison at 7.15am. As a duty governor, I know I’m in for a long day. We are contracted to work 37 hours a week, but we almost all work significantly longer hours, without overtime, just to meet the minimum demands of the job.
Today it is 10:15 when the first alarm sounds. When I arrive at the scene, I see a group of uniformed staff and I am told one of our officers has been assaulted by a prisoner. A prisoner is on the floor, being restrained by staff. A staff member gives me a brief account of what has happened, and the prisoner is then escorted, unrestrained, to our segregation unit.
The assault on the officer is serious. Her white shirt has blood on it, her face has scratches around the eye and she also has a nasty bite mark on her upper arm. We have to make sure that the officer is being cared for and evidence is preserved. She must be photographed, her clothing must be bagged and she will have to attend A&E within the hour for a vaccination. We have to take statements from witnesses, and the staff who intervened must complete the paperwork.
Having to manage an incident such as this is stressful, but it’s a controlled stress. The biggest pressure when you’re a governor is never being off duty and coping with a constantly overflowing volume of work.
Governors are leaving the profession and prison officer numbers have been cut. At the same time, the number of incidents we have to deal with, including attacks, suicide attempts and instances of self-harm, has increased. In the year to September 2014, there were 1,958 serious assaults in prison – an increase of 33% on the previous year. That figure includes 431 attacks on prison staff. It all makes for an increasingly demanding job.
At 5pm, there is another alarm. This time I arrive at the cell in question to find staff visibly shaken and the prisoner surrounded by nurses. It turns out that a prisoner has swallowed a J-cloth and paper towels. Despite the officers’ best efforts, they were unable to dislodge the blockage and the prisoner could not breathe.
We are lucky enough to have on duty a doctor whose previous role was in a hospital A&E department. He uses abdominal thrusts and manages to partially dislodge the blockage, enabling an officer to pull it out of the prisoner’s mouth to the sound of air rushing in. The prisoner is alive but needs to go to hospital. It is near the end of the main shift and we have to provide officers as an escort. This will mean that there won’t be enough staff to unlock prisoners for their association periods (time out of their cells), which will lead to discontent.
It is now 9pm and I am still in the prison. I wait for the assaulted officer to return to provide support and to get a first-hand account of what happened. The officer is grateful for me waiting to speak with her.
There is a plethora of paperwork to complete and it is only at the end of the day that I have time to reflect. In between these two incidents I am responsible for the smooth running of the prison – from handling people management issues to tasting the prisoners’ food (a mandatory requirement). As governors, we are expected to possess a wide range of skills, from incident command to contract management. It also helps to have some knowledge of medical law and to have the people skills to deal with everyone from a violent prisoner to a judge.
Some stress is healthy, but the frequency of incidents and the increase in the volume of work means that we find ourselves being stressed beyond those sensible doses, which results in governors leaving to become train drivers or vicars. Some prisons are more stressful than others but all are subject to the same degree of public scrutiny, particularly if something goes wrong.
Today, I eventually leave prison at 9.45pm. But the day doesn’t end there – I am now on call until 07:30 the following day.
The author has worked in the prison service for 28 years.
Talk to us on Twitter via @Guardianpublic and sign up for your free weekly Guardian Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
