7:00pm Wednesday 14th May 2008
By Lynn Morris
PRISON is full of scroungers living in luxury at our expense... if you believe everything you read in the red-tops. Or rife with corruption, riddled with drugs and assaults on staff... if you watch police dramas.
Myths are perpetuated because most people have never seen the inside of a prison and those who have might not want to talk about it. But actually, Dorchester Prison is well run, businesslike and unthreatening.
Governor Tony Corcoran believes criminals are punished by being deprived of liberty. The focus of his prison is therefore protecting the public from harm and rehabilitating offenders -"not about further punishment. It is about how we can address prisoners' needs."
Dorchester is a local prison serving the courts in Dorset and Somerset, with an average length of stay of 42 days.
At any time, about half the 250-odd inmates are convicted and half on remand. It takes all classes of criminal. Those in prison for non-payment of fines mingle with murderers.
Reception prison officer Mel Watts said: "Sometimes they're not expecting to come here and arrive with a packet of fags and their head in a mess. If they are a regular or know they are coming, they might have packed a bag and taken that to court."
On arrival, property is removed and bedding and regulation clothing issued. There is currently one prisoner wearing the brightly coloured jumpsuit given to those liable to try and escape.
Dorchester prison was built in Victorian times and most of the small cells designed for one now accommodate two occupants.
Prisoners classified as vulnerable - including sex offenders, those who have committed crimes against children, owe money to drug dealers or have mental health problems - are kept separately in a special wing away from the main prison population.
Prison officer Brian Churchill said: "Prisoners buy the Echo and word gets around. There are some sex offenders who don't want to be classed as vulnerable prisoners but they usually feel safer if they are."
Around half of prisoners have served time before but all spend their first couple of nights in a special section of the prison.
First night centre prison officer Maureen Pitman said: "Some are very frightened at first, some frantic and some so drugged up they don't know what's happening.
"Some people might have left a child with a friend and don't know where they are and others might have left their car at court. We make arrangements for all these things."
After a couple of days prisoners move to one of the wings. In the small cells there is a TV, small kettle, bunk beds and - behind a plastic curtain - a loo and basin. It is not luxurious.
Prisoners can work either mornings or afternoons as an orderly in the gym, cooking, cleaning or sorting laundry.
The job of a kitchen orderly is like working in any industrial kitchen, except all knives and tools are locked up and checked in and out.
The kitchen is run by Jeremy Swinburn, who feeds prisoners for £1.91 a day - an increasing challenge as food prices rise.
Other prisoners attend classes. According to Richard Steele, information advice and guidance team leader, the average prisoner has the education level of an 11-year-old but some can't read or write and others have university degrees.
In prison they can learn literacy, numeracy, computer skills, food hygiene, cookery, industrial cleaning and art.
Mr Steele said: "The certificates are issued from a college so it is not obvious they gained the qualification in prison, which is important for finding work outside."
Prisoners can also attend a course addressing drug issues.
As many as 70 to 75 per cent have problems when they arrive but the prison has a good record on drugs. Last year, on average, 6.9 per cent of prisoners tested positive in random drug tests, down from about a fifth in 2004, with figures in the teens for comparable prisons.
Drug strategy co-ordinator David Holloway said: "We run successful short courses about drugs for prisoners.
"It is unrealistic to think that drug addicts are going to come out and stay completely clean so we focus on harm minimisation.
"But we are always challenging them on their behaviour."
Incidents of assaults are rare, but to maintain order prisoners work towards privileges, extra visits or time in the gym. Bad behaviour is punished with a reduction in these things or a spell in the segregation unit.
This is the unit that seems most like an old-fashioned prison. Time out of the cells is very limited and inmates are isolated from other prisoners.
Notices on the cell doors specify how many officers are required to be in attendance for the door to be unlocked.
The ethos at Dorchester is to make the prison "continuous" with the community - prisoners only spend a fraction of their life in prison so they need to be prepared for reintegration into society.
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