British prisons are launching a charm offensive, including special Ramadan meals for Muslim prisoners. For most inmates, however, the jury is still out on the success of these measures. Gamal Nkrumah seeks the reality behind the spin from prisoners, staff and the governor of London's Pentonville Prison, who, interestingly, is soon to help rebuild the prison system in Iraq Her Majesty's Prison Pentonville on Caledonian Road in London is a sinister sight. An impregnable all-male Victorian-era prison, Pentonville holds mainly petty criminals, young men on remand and detained foreigners, as opposed to hard-core offenders. The 160-year-old Pentonville has a markedly higher percentage of African, Afro-Caribbean, Arab and Muslim inmates than the average British prison, as well as a sizable and growing number of black staff members. I contemplated the daunting prospect of approaching its formidable gates on a bitterly cold and wet autumn morning. I was to spend an entire day in the prison -- interviewing the governor of the prison, speaking to inmates and prison staff. "I fly to Iraq next week," explained Pentonville Governor Gareth Davies. He was heading to Basra to help rebuild the Iraqi prison system and share the British experience of prison management with his Iraqi counterparts, but he was gracious enough to spare me a few minutes. "We don't pretend we have all the answers," Governor Davies told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We were persistent and we have resolved some problems. Pentonville should be a catalyst for improvement. This is the message I wish to convey to the people of Iraq. I think they have to be persistent in their efforts to rebuild the country." I am told that he seldom speaks off the cuff, and his smile held a tiny hint of a challenge. "No one should expect instant results," Governor Davies said. He was proud of his record at Pentonville, and was eager to share his experience with the Iraqis. An affable, unassuming man, Davies has 22 years experience in prison service, mainly in large prisons, and led a distinguished career both at the local and international level. He helped set up prison service in war-shattered Kosovo in 1999. A career soldier who has worked his way through the British prison system, he knows a thing or two about big-city jails and does not shy away from speaking bluntly about the challenges facing British prisons. "Every prison is totally different. This place is very busy all the time," but, he added, "conditions in Pentonville are relatively relaxed." Resources are limited and the prison authorities are obliged to juggle priorities, he explained. If the governor is to be taken at his word and on the merits of his record, he will do a good job of assisting the Iraqis to overhaul their entire prison management structure. New ideas are being put to the test in Pentonville, and the prison has used novel approaches to the specific problems faced by inmates from different racial and cultural backgrounds, including Muslim prisoners. To their credit, the management and staff at Pentonville are willing to experiment. But how did the prisoners used as guinea pigs feel about the changes? I was keen to find out if ethnic minority and Muslim inmates were indeed disposed to take advantage of the opportunities, albeit limited, now within their grasp. With 170 Muslim inmates, Pentonville provides a unique opportunity for the British prison system to come to terms with the fact that the nation's penitentiaries are home to many Muslim men. Islam is the fastest growing religion in British prisons. Racial and religious profiling in Britain has sadly become endemic. Black mugger, black drug-dealer, Arab or Muslim terrorist -- these images confine black and Muslim men to stereotypes indelibly impressed on the public mind. Migrant and refugee communities have come under intense public suspicion and official scrutiny since 11 September 2001. Arab and Muslim prisoners, religious and community leaders complain that new regulations enacted since the attacks in New York and Washington have targeted Arab and Muslim communities in Britain, and racial and religious stereotyping in the wake of 11 September is alienating many Arabs and Muslims in Britain today. Even though the number of hard- core Muslim criminals is relatively low at the national level, the number of Muslim men in British prisons is steadily rising. Arbitrary detentions, which flew in the face of habeas corpus proceedings practiced in Britain since the 17th century, heightened tensions. At one point, engineering and scientific research students suspected of terrorism were incarcerated -- some at Pentonville. Access to legal counsel is a fundamental human right long established in British common law, and today prisoners are encouraged to seek legal advice. Muslim inmates are often weighed down with an assortment of mundane matters. Prayer, including the all important communal Friday prayers, ablutions and special diets have become an integral feature and permanent fixture of many British prisons. At Pentonville, Muslim inmates handle the food, especially during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The inmates take turns cooking and preparing the food. "Animals are slaughtered according to Muslim religious stipulations -- everything is halal," I was assured by Adewale Adegun, the Nigerian-born prison race relations and equal opportunity officer at Pentonville. "They have a choice in what they eat." How did he end up in Pentonville? Adegun says he wanted to avoid a boring nine-to-five job. He left Nigeria in 1988 and applied for a Pentonville prison staff post. "Conditions have in many respects improved considerably since I started working here, and especially in the past five years. But we still have a long way to go. Racism is deep-rooted and it is difficult to completely eradicate it." He speaks as one who understands all too well the perils of not listening to the insider's voice. "There is a visiting imam at the moment, but the prison administration is looking for a permanent imam to minister to the spiritual needs of the Muslim prisoners," Adegun told the Weekly. Pentonville is a sprawling, multi-storeyed building. Levels three and four are reserved for medically-screened new inmates and level five is where the prisoners work. Working prisoners wear distinctive green and grey track suits. A few Muslim inmates sport bushy beards, and the Rastafarian prisoners are permitted to keep their dreadlocks. Some Muslims have to share their cells with non-Muslims. The foreign prison population in Britain has multiplied in the past few years. Men of 52 different nationalities from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe are held at Pentonville, including Algerians, Moroccans, Egyptians, Sudanese and Yemenis. There are 8,000 foreign nationals in British jails today and the figure is estimated to hit 10,000 by 2004. Many foreign inmates either do not speak, or speak very little, English. "Last week, a Russian inmate tried to commit suicide. He could speak no English and no one spoke any Russian. He felt terribly isolated and was depressed," Adegun explained. Green safety nets dangle from the ceilings from floor to floor to thwart attempted suicides. The level of violence in Pentonville is relatively low, I was told. Pentonville has witnessed no major riots in recent times and minor disturbances are easily dealt with. Many inmates have mental disorders and highly agitated inmates are systematically isolated. There are insignificant numbers of long-term, hard-core prisoners in Pentonville and few inmates were considered dangerous enough to cause wardens sleepless nights. The high turn-over gives Pentonville its special character. There is a considerable number of first time prisoners, but many shoplifters and drug dealers have been in and out of Pentonville many times before. In prison they are guaranteed a square meal and medical care. Out on the streets some only have alcohol and drugs for consolation, which leaves them very little spare cash to spend on food. The vast majority of inmates at Pentonville have no family, no job, no career, no future, and they lack any support system. Most have no real homes to return to. At the time of my visit to Pentonville, a television documentary about racism in the British police force had ignited shock, anger and frustration in Britain. Police officers resigned following allegations of racism exposed in the BBC documentary. An undercover reporter Mark Daly joined the Greater Manchester Police as a trainee and filmed recruits at Bruche National Training Centre in Warrington, Cheshire. Police Constable Robert Pulling of North Wales Police was shown dressed in an improvised Ku Klux Klan hood and was heard making a string of racist comments. Constable Pulling apparently voted for the British National Party and was a Hitler fan, saying the genocidal Nazi leader had the "right ideas". "It came as no big surprise for us," an inmate told me. "They are all racist pigs," he whispered indignantly. Pulling was a typical white policeman, the black inmates -- and black staff -- at Pentonville seemed to infer. Pentonville has had a morbid past, but it has come a long way. Before the complete banning of capital punishment in Britain in 1998, when all remaining provisions for the death penalty were abolished, no less than 120 men were hanged at Pentonville between 1902 and 1961 -- an average of two per year. Interestingly enough, 112 were executed for murder, two for treason and six for spying during times of war. John MacDonald, the first man to be hanged at Pentonville, was executed on 30 September 1902 for the murder of Henry Groves, whom he stabbed to death in a brawl over five shillings. Irish-born Sir Roger Casement was stripped of his knighthood after a trial at the Old Bailey and executed on 3 August 1916. Sir Roger had apparently moved to Germany after the outbreak of World War I and attempted to enlist Germany in the struggle for Irish independence from Britain. He was captured in Ireland, hurriedly tried, and executed at Pentonville. These days, Britain is going the American way by privatising several large prisons. The authorities plan to sell more prisons to property developers and prisons might become -- as in the US -- big business. Pentonville has a staff of 700 including disciplining staff, doctors, paramedics and administrators. And even though it is an all male prison, roughly 30 per cent of the staff are women. Only 15 years ago, there were no female staff at Pentonville. Times are fast changing, but the challenges are persistent and the problems prodigious. Completed in 1842, Pentonville was originally designed to hold 524 prisoners, each having his own cell -- 13 feet long, seven feet wide and nine feet high. Today, Pentonville has some 1,200 inmates at any given time. Governor Davies said that new Pentonville prisoners undergo a "reception screening" where they are fully evaluated for security, medical, psychiatric and educational status. Most attempted suicides occur in the first few days in custody. Many prisoners suffer from a variety of psychiatric illnesses, including drug-induced psychosis. Pentonville has a suicide prevention scheme, because suicide and self-injury among prisoners is a serious problem in British jails. Many inmates undergo detoxification soon after the reception screening, and Pentonville is currently planning an expansion of its detoxification provision. Some of the most prevalent drugs in Britain today include heroin, methadone, dihydrocodeine, cocaine, crack cocaine, benzodiazepines and cannabis. "In five years cannabis might be legalised," a prison staff member told the Weekly. "The prices of cannabis have plummeted, it is now cheaper than cigarettes," he added. Pentonville has five full-time doctors and in-house medical care is available seven days a week. There are 40 fully-equipped hospital beds for the most acute cases. Pentonville benefits from substantial capital investment for the development of a new health care centre. "We are building a new hospital wing at the cost of 16 million pounds," Davies said. Many prisoners are alcoholics. Some narcotics like heroin, cocaine and crack are very addictive, and many prisoners are unable to kick the heroin habit. Unfortunately, it appears that in spite of tight security measures, drugs are readily available at Pentonville. I was told that some prisoners become heavily indebted during their stay in prison because of their drug addiction. There is a serious drug problem in many British prisons and many suspect collusion between prisoners and staff in drug trafficking. Nevertheless, Pentonville prides itself on its exemplary detoxification programme. There are about 5,000 new prisoners every year at Pentonville, around 60 per cent of the newcomers are detoxified. The process of detoxification takes about 10 days. "This is one of the things we do really well, if I may say so," said the governor. "Prisoners often go to court having taken something to ease the tension and calm their nerves," concurred a member of the staff. "Many prisoners are subjected to the 'method one programme' which lasts for a week or 10 days. When they come out they are different people." Prisoners also have access to occupational therapy and physiotherapy services, as well as pharmaceutical advice and mental health care. Most require remedial education, as the vast majority of inmates never finished school and are functionally illiterate. A high percentage of prisoners are dyslexic and most are not numerate. There is a special unit for prisoners who need to be segregated from the general prison population because they constitute a danger to themselves, staff member and other prisoners. An inspection of the wing reserved for the special needs of "problem prisoners" was something of an eye-opener. "Today we've got 10, higher than usual. Normally we have around six to eight problem prisoners," the prison warden told me. "During the day we have about four or five staff members on duty; that is one for every two problem prisoners." Supervising "problem prisoners" is a particularly stressful job and the staff concerned are selected for their special inter- personal skills. The dreaded "strip down" cell, where prisoners are strip searched, is reserved for the most difficult cases. "It is a safe cell where the violent inmate cannot harm himself or others," I was told. The inmates in the "strip down" cell are constantly watched from a hidden camera. The cell is bone-bare with a bucket for a toilet and a special blanket. "They are kept in those cells for hours and not days; for as short a time as possible," At any rate they are for exceptionally violent prisoners, the officer in charge said. Anger-management services are provided for staff, violent inmates and self-harming sorts. Over-crowding in the prison system has led prison managers into uncharted territory. One of the new developments is the controversial tagging system in which British prisoners are electronically tagged under the home detention curfew programme. In the past three years English prisons have released 44,000 prisoners before they finished serving their sentences. Under the new system, prisoners with drug offenses, until now barred from the release programme, will soon be tagged and released into the community. The principle is sound enough, but the authorities soon ran into a different set of problems. Tagged prisoners committed more than 1,400 new crimes and 78 criminals have gone missing after cutting off their tags. One person was released from Pentonville and there was a massive rise in burglaries -- five or six houses in the same street in one night. Electronic tagging has, nevertheless, become the way forward for dealing with overcrowding. Their every move is monitored, and if they breech the terms of home detention, they are quickly brought to book. "Our main goal is to stop them re-offending," a prison staff member insisted. Drug action teams in Hackney, Islington and the Tower Hamlets -- areas in the vicinity of the prison -- work closely with the authorities at Pentonville. "Long-term resettlement is getting better," I was assured. "We offer them advice on jobs and career opportunities. When they have a job lined up, it helps to keep them off the streets and from going to Kings Cross to buy and sell drugs," the prison warden told me. "We are targeting individual prisoners -- 50 to 100 per year. And the impact on reducing crime rates and ensuring a sense of security in the community is tremendous." Pentonville provides a wide range of recreational facilities for its inmates. The prison library is run in conjunction with Islington council, the London borough in which the prison is located. Access to books, regular showers, pre-packaged breakfasts and hot lunches and exercise boosts the morale and self- esteem of the prisoners. There are computer facilities and prisoners are encouraged to learn computer skills which might help them find gainful employment opportunities after their release. Pentonville is also pioneering a number of groundbreaking outreach programmes for inmates when they leave the prison. Preliminary studies show that rehabilitation and outreach programmes considerably reduce the amount of crime in the community at large. The Samaritans and other support groups work closely with the prison authorities both inside the prison and as part of the outreach programmes. The percentage of people behind bars in Britain is not quite as high as in the US or Russia, but the incarceration rate in Britain is a third more than either France or Germany. The British electorate is acutely concerned with anti-crime policies, so British politicians happily oblige their constituents. However, there are many people in Britain today -- inside and outside the prison system -- who are trying the bring the appalling conditions in the country's over-crowded prisons to the public's attention, and instill in prison officers and staff the spirit of tolerance and understanding. They are also trying to keep more young people out of prison, as well as taking tentative steps to prepare inmates for life outside the vicious cycle of drug abuse and crime. The idea is not to make prisons more comfortable -- prisons are not meant to be hotels, nor are they hospitals. Rather, it is to reduce the number of prisoners -- including detained immigrants.
