In 11 years of doing this work I’ve never had access to keys in any of the prisons I’ve worked.
In fairness I’ve never really wanted to either: They are big and cumbersome and jangley and their use is – obviously – wrapped up in every rule you can think of. Key to that – see what I did there? – is keys stay in the prison: If you are authorised you collect on your way in and you return on your way out. Penalties for misuse usually end in the twentieth century’s politically-correct version of a messy death and dishonour for all future generations.
I’ve relied on members of staff escorting me round the place.
This is good ‘cos I avoid sounding like a jailor every time I move and I avoid all risk of the aforementioned messy death and dishonour. It’s also good as I get to know a place through the commentary of my escort which in turn informs me about my escort. It’s not so good in that it puts another job on to a member of staff who likely has more urgent stuff to do.
Not having keys has never been a barrier to the momentum of work that I do – until now. Manchester is a different in that (a) shortage of staff means more people are more stretched and (b) that carries more risk in a High Security prison and (c) as a High Security prison there are more locks, barriers and gates which means everywhere takes longer to get to which means my escorts never have a quick job.
The clincher for me however is that with a year of work now behind me there are a bunch of people with whom I now need to nuture a relationship that was built when they were with me on program. This is the ‘Yeah but do you really mean that stuff and are you really committed to us or are you just another bloke dipping in and out and another set of broken promises?’ I always knew we’d get to this point and here we are: The test is now what I do and where I’m seen between the program days.
Make no mistake the stakes are high: Every prolonged absence with no reported sightings is a window for good people to doubt and the naysayers to fill the information vacuum with ‘I told you sos.’ And in prison people have a ton of time to gossip and speculate – not usually to the benefit of the target of said speculation – which means unless countered my reputation takes a hit.
These last few months I’ve really struggled to get in beyond my program days. Some of that is me – I have other work besides this – and some is that there has just not been people available to help me get in and around. Periods of my absence have been stretched and the men from my programs have noticed. So I bit the bullet and asked to go through the training that staff do in order to have keys.
I am now pretty confident I can find my way around the place – though of course that’s never been tested as I’ve always been escorted. The prospect of finding my way on my own and getting the right key for the right lock and spotting those that are electronic as well as mechanical AND returning said keys correctly and ABSOLUTELY NOT finding them in my pocket when I get home has me right back in first-timer mode.
The evidence of course is all around me that this is an achievable skill set well within my own capacity. The benefits are that I’ll be able to get in on my whim and stop relying on the good offices of others. It still feels like and ENORMOUS responsibility though – right up there with the other scary ones around good husbanding and good daddying.I have the final Corruption-Prevention module to cover which I expect to be a stark and sobering reminder of the very real risks that will always be in the room with me regardless of how it feels with a particular group on a particular program. It is something I have to hold alongside the hopeful ‘people are doing the best they can with the resources they have available’ frame. Yet another dark-light contrast in a world that tends to be organised in binary while truths are also found in the murky shades of grey between.
