Cornton Vale programme

[msmedusa]

Bit of discussion on this on the "heroin drought" thread, but thought I woud start a new one.

It is so utterly obvious that it is heroin that is the primary problem.

One of the most startling things was a teenager given 12 months  (later reduced to 9m) for "reckless endangerment of life" after she injected someone who ODed.  They survived thanks to her calling an amulance and staying with them until it arrived...which got her convicted.  (There is a policy in Scotland of police turning up to ODs.  This is officially denied, with the excuse that police only turn up as first responders where they are closer than an amulance and promoted in literature.  Its widely believed not to be true and makes people v. likely not to phone 999 at an OD but try to manage it themselves.).  She was readmitted after a stabbing.   So that was successful wasnt it.

Cornton Vale is pointless as a prison. Turning it into a theraputic community would be so much more purposeful.  The stats for self-harm and experiences of abuse among inmates are horrific.  The whole imprisionment of drug addicts, many of whom have found heroin as a way of dealing with previous problems is so misguided.  Prision in general is a violent controlling place, many of the inmates have almost continual experience of "being controlled" either within relationships, through drugs and finally within the prison regime.

[tim1leg]

I absolutely agree Msmedusa  turn it in to a TC for god sake !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We all know the majority of the women who come in to prison are in a desperate state, their life stories are consistently and overwhelmingly traumatic and deeply sad.

 I know from a report on Scotland women’s prisons a few years back that of the women held in them

98% have drug addiction problems.
80% have mental health problems.
75% have a history of abuse and very poor physical health

For the love of god or even common sense if that dosnt work for you ...................we can see that these ladies are not from a general cross-section of society, they are very damaged women and what they need is  love and support to acknowledge, accept and heal from the crisis they often through horrendous circumstances and “coping”   find themselves in.

The only difference between me and these ladies is that

1.   I never got caught

2.   Through fate, luck, destiny? Whatever I got into recovery and got the chance to be part of a TC.


I am also pretty certain it’s the same story for a lot of our brothers in the men’s jails, maybe not as high as 98% but certainly from my own experience of doing surveys in my local “private prison in Kilmarnock over a period of 5 years just under 70% were under the influence of one drug or another when they were arrested for the crime they were serving the time for and over 40% of them identified themselves as someone with an addiction problem?

You know there’s a lot wrong with our world….. But this is a f*ckin disgrace and I’m ashamed of humanity for allowing it to continue.

Sorry for being so emotional about this folks …. It just hurts ye know?

[sapphire]

One of the most startling things was a teenager given 12 months  (later reduced to 9m) for "reckless endangerment of life" after she injected someone who ODed.  They survived thanks to her calling an amulance and staying with them until it arrived...which got her convicted.  (There is a policy in Scotland of police turning up to ODs.  This is officially denied, with the excuse that police only turn up as first responders where they are closer than an amulance and promoted in literature.  Its widely believed not to be true and makes people v. likely not to phone 999 at an OD but try to manage it themselves.).  She was readmitted after a stabbing.   So that was successful wasnt it.

I was quite shocked at that bit, it creates a mentality of people leaving anyone OD'ing. And like you say, if she'd buggered off to save her own skin the od'er would have died.

How people in power can think these jail sentences for people who are primarlly commiting these offences due to their addiction (I think she stabbed her BF when she was drunk and had been smoking crack?) are doing anyone any good or helping anyone I don't know.

The whole atmosphere of CV looked oppresive, depressing and just awful -  it's enough to make you turn to drugs when you're released to try to get over having served any time in such a shit hole environment.

[OP8S]

 Only one good thing come out of Cornton Vale & that's an ex-girlfriend of mine. Though to be fair she was pregnant when sentenced & was incarcerated in a building that was not connected to the main prison. She reduced her methadone & was drug free for the birth of the baby. Since coming out she has been employed as our token " ex-user " at the CDT & is doing very well for herself. Also as she is the only person employeed by my CDT that has actually got any experience of daily illicit drug use she is one of the only keyworkers that knows her stuff. If it wasn't for her I don't know state I would be in currently as it was her that persuaded me to get a methadone script, something which I fought against for some time, wanting to be maintained on an opiate of my choice. In the end I gave in as it just wasn't going to happen, I'm glad that I've got my methadone script now. I got on it just in time, before I lost everything. Unfortunetly because of our past history she is not allowed to be my key & instead I'm stuck with an ex-alcoholic who smoked a joint once....then vomitted ( because he was so drunk ). Fair enough he can empathise with the feeling of wanting to escape reality for a period of time & still does occassionaly, but it's not the same as opiates. His favourite phrase appears to be " I can go without a drink for days, but you have to rely on methadone everyday ", does he not realise I've worked that one out for myself & knew it to be the case when I started on methadone ?
Gone a bit of topic there but at least one ( two ) if you include baby good thing has come out of Cornton Vale.

[derek d j]

Yes, OP8, mother and baby bonding works wonders and the units in womens' gaols often contrast with the despair that hangs like a cloud over gen pop.

If only you Scottish sensibles could do something about Corton Vale. I watched both shows. A bleak place. I found myself focusing mainly on the staff. Like drug treatment, basically decent, caring peops seem to be hypnotised into ineffectiveness. Limited drug information and understanding within the confused paradigm of crime and punishment. Magistrates hand out sretches to address repeated petty crime or to put the junk in the penal dustbin.. The defendant is 'parked' in the pokey a while, the root causes of her offending go essentially untouched and she most likely leaves more damaged than when she came in.

As OP8 notes in another thread, addiction is rife even in countries with draconian laws that include the death penalty. Punishing people doesn't stop their drug-taking. Indeed, it may enourage it. In the shoes of most Corton Valers, I'd feel pretty fucking sorry for myself. If you think you've suffered injustice you're less inclined to consider any done to your 'victims'. I'd like to see the Daily Mail ladies who rant about 'holiday camps' spend a week amongst the abuse victims and self-harmers, see how their opinions are changed.


How do you convert a prison into a Therapeutic Community? Would the lags take the piss, as opponents argue? How would you get the maximum benefit with the minimum downside? Would it achieve 'success' in the terms by which such things are measured?  I've never really considered such matters in detail.  Somebody should, and soon.

[msmedusa]

I'd like to see the Daily Mail ladies who rant about 'holiday camps' spend a week amongst the abuse victims and self-harmers, see how their opinions are changed.

How do you convert a prison into a Therapeutic Community? Would the lags take the piss, as opponents argue?

You know Derek, maybe you've got something there.

What most of the women in there need is a damn good holiday.  The kind of holiday where you come back with new perspectives, reignited old interests and found new ones.  The sad thing is that bleak as CV is, for some of the inmates being locked up in a cell 22h a day with a 2h wait for a toilet *is* a holiday from their lives, in that they dont have to deal with the poverty, abuse and general shit that they do on the outside.

Maybe thats the solution turn CV into a secure holiday camp.  Install spas and healthy eating regimes and provide a programme of theraputic activites and open it up way beyond the prisoner population.  Make it a desirable place to go as a holiday destination for women, and admit a cross section of the population - students on summer vacation; retired women, bored empty-nester housewives, celebs that feel the need for a bit of time out etc as well as for inmates

Cut down on the "us and them" situation between the screws and residents, with the "discipline" being enforced from within the residents.  Beyond the drug issues, there are ingrained behaviours in many of the CV inmates - a lack of boundaries, backed by the whole intrusiveness of the justice system; a lack of assertiveness, backed by being in a "we tell you what to do and you do it" environment and a lack of self-awareness, backed by the issue of their lives being narrated through reports that other people have written.  Once you start moving "discipline" away from external instrusion, instruction and information and towards internal regulation, as modified by how peers react, you'll get much more confident, assertive women coming out of the other side.

The whole drugs thing is a symptom of shit lives.  They are then told that if they dont stop using drugs to deal with their shit lives then the state will make their lives even shittier, so they better stop the drugs, (or at least only used approved drugs); but there is very little in CV that actually acknowledges that many womens' lives are shit, women end up damaged by living shit lives, and that if you started to repair some of the damage, you have a chance of making their lives better.

[OP8S]

I think that there should be more focus on social background reports, I'm sure a large proportion of people ( not just women ) have at one time or another been victim of abuse whether it be mental, physical or sexual. The person passing sentence should be aware of this & take a holistic view of the person, not just focus on the crime that they are on trial for. I'm sure in a lot of cases, the appropriate counselling, therapy would be far more succesfull in reducing repeat offenders than just banging them up. I had a relative who had a particularily bad upbringing, which resulted in behavioural problems which manifested themselves at quite a young age so social workers & the childrens panel ( because he was to young to be tried in a court of law ) thought it would be best for him to attend a approved school, borstal, whatever you want to call it. It was several hundred miles away from his own family, friends & so he was alone amongst other older people that very often bullied him, staff included. He returned for his first home visit a proper little hard man, it was his only option unless he wanted to take abuse of all kinds daily & as time went on he turned him into a very profficient shop-lifter, thief, drug-user & thug. He wasn't a bad lad really, though the enviroment he grew up in changed him from a vulnerable child into a extremely screwed up young man. Next he was in with the big boys for a string of petty offences, nothing shocking, shoplifting, possession of gear etc. It was just a vicious circle that had started off with his first period in borstal. He died several years ago, septacemia (sp?) blood poisining because of his addiction to the needle, not gear specifically he'd bang anything that he thought might give him some form of escapism. He even used to i/v vodka. Ok so maybe he wasn't the brightest crayon in the pack but the system sent him down that path when they first put him away to mix with other older offenders. I'm sure that if he had been offered help rather than just being punished for his actions he would have stood a better chance & if the childrens panel had really looked into the underlying reasons for his behavioural problems then he might still be with us today. 23 years old, he never stood a chance.
That's just one persons story, I'm sure most people have experienced or known similar stories. Prisons should be kept for those people that are a serious threat to individuals, or our society because as far as I can see they do not rehabilitate prisoners, quite often they do the opposite.

[derek d j]

Two perceptive posts. If Msmedusa dumps those shifty socialists for one of the capitalist parties and OP8 finds a Lib Dem to carry his methadone bottles, you've great futures on the Scottish Executive. Sapph can be your poster girl. In a world where Harriet Harman or Ann Widdlecombe are considered sex symbols, the voters will flock to the Opium All Stars .

I just watched the 3rd and last episode. Gems like 'Debbie has successfully come off drugs and got stable"..means she's been given a methadone habit. Usually when Debbie gets out she's away to score. Now she's just going to collect her meth and head to the pub; without apparent irony she says it's good to be off drugs. The governor seems clued in and the pudding faced brunette screw calls things pretty straight. She lacks the enormous butt of most colleagues and is a good example of a direct, common-sense Scotswoman. Heartbreakingly shrewd observation that the abuse victim who breaches the peace by self-harming in public will be never stay out long.  No help, you see. Helluva society when the molesters of children walk free - and find their innocence-destroying ways can be a business asset - while their victims are on suicide watch in prison basements.  Shots of the bleak estates of Dumbarton or Kilmarnock remind the viewer why some women prefer life in the gaol.

Is there any hope? Both governor and staff know nothing much will change unless the tsunami hits Sellafield. Until then, you'll find a hundred times more real criminals on the Honours List or in the boardrooms than in the prison system.  A lot of folk know it stinks but since Thatcher it's been fixed so they never get together. Considerable planning has gone into it. Maybe hadn't allowed for the internet. But read the instructions to the companies tasked to break Wikileaks to find out what happens if you stray too far from Facebook. Hope whoever leaked them doesn't meet the fate of Pte Manning, naked and incommunicado in solitarity for over a year now. Deep cover cops incite peace groups to break the law and then arrest them.  Some fearful nutters have staged a silent coup d'etat and now run things. £1+ a year for the bankers, and they make the losers do the menial stuff or lose their dole. Tell us we're all in this together with no more irony than Debbie.  If only they knew. But they won't, until it's too late for them and possibly the planet. May as well expect Michelle to metamophisise into model citizen 'twixt gate and bus stop.

Whole bloody island is one big open prison, complete with surveillance cameras for security purposes. Better than the militias or martial law but surely we can do better. The only place to find freedom is in your own head.  Scotland gave us the Barlinnie experiment and the time is certainly ripe for innovative ideas. So keep up your efforts and activities, Bravehearts, the rest of us look northwards for our inspiration.

[msmedusa]

Helluva society when the molesters of children walk free ...while their victims are on suicide watch in prison basements.

There are a number of women on a revolving door into CV due to non-payment of prostitution fines.  Hellava society when the molesters of women walk free, while the state demands payment from their poverty stricken victims then slings them into suicide watch in prison basements when they cant pay - which is why they were being sexually exploited in the first place.

The Barlinnie experiment, one of the only good things to ever come out of the place, is now no more, was shut down in the mid-90s.   One of the most shocking things about the Bar-L that I've ever heard is the "entertainment" provided there.  In a city where slashings and stabbings are rife and domestic violence is at epidemic levels, they show really seriously fucking violent misogynistic films (Saw and Hostel among them) on the cable channel nightly.  Who the fuck thinks thats a good idea - to gather together lots of men - a goodly proportion with violent tendancies - and give them a nightly dose of fictional violence, frequently with sexual undertones? While the library is stocked with "true crime" books and gangster autobiographies.