I’ve said for many years that no kid ever says “When I grow up I want to be a prison officer.” Some will say a policeman, some will say fireman, some will say astronaut, but none will ever say prison officer. Hell, I’ve known people who’ve said, even as a kid, that they wanted to be a bank robber or drug dealer (as sad as it is), but I have never come across a single kid who wants to be a prison officer.
Until now.
Well, Adam, you have finally shocked me. I doubt if any kid around here would admit to such an aspiration.
Regarding Officers, there certainly are some who are humane; I know this from experience. I don’t know if this is still a relevant statement: I used to say that there were the humane minority, a generally of officer who supports the status quo then a minority of sadists. Actually, reminds me of school too!
The problem with holding the above reasonable view is that those who, also, reasonably hold the view ACAB apply it to Screws. Anarchists, who seem to think that all Prisoners are revolutionaries, are the most difficult to discuss this with. Then again, very few of them have been inside or read the mass of Prison literature, fact or fiction. One of the leitmotifs of this literature is the humane officer. I remember reading Jimmy Boyle’s account of his time in the Barlinnie Scottish Special Unit, a cage within a separate section of the Unit . He was covered in excreta and urine and waiting for his next battle when some soul threw a half packet of chocolate digestives in. The bizarre is normal in Prison but acts of humanity rare. Victor Serge, Jean Genet and many others including Koestler himself have written eloquently about their experiences. For the sadistic few, the Political is lower than the peadophile for reasons stated to me which I won’t go into here.
The trick is not to allow dehumanizing circumstances to reduce your humanity. In the 60s, after reading Franz Fanon’s, *Wretched of the Earth*, I stopped calling the Police pigs. In conclusion: My three volume copy of Trotsky’s *History of the Russian Revolution* was robbed for the POs library. I don’t know if they were taken by the sadists or the humane Screws but, certainly, the literate. Come the Revolution!
Have you read the first two chapters of “Goppers Screw”?
No, I can’t say I have.
*”Gopper’s Screw”