Carceral breakdown at HMP Whitemoor

An anonymous HMP Whitemoor Prisoner exposes the reality of the British prison system, and criticises both prisoner governors and the Prison Officers Association (POA)

Throughout the country, prisons are failing. The buildings themselves are crumbling, infested with rats and cockroaches, having not been maintained at all for over 15 years. But it is the severe mis-management which is the greatest cause of the deterioration which has led to the current situation, where prisoners are rarely unlocked from cells and grow so frustrated by their inhumane conditions that they inevitably resort to drugs or violence to cope.  

Undoubtedly, the prison which has seen the harshest changes has been HMP Whitemoor. This once clean and functioning prison, which only opened in the 1990s, has seen a near total collapse of standards to the extent that it is unrecognisable from what it was a decade ago. Responsibility for this situation lies with those who have appointed weaker and more pathetic management as time has passed.

The regime afforded to prisoners at HMP Whitemoor now is akin to what was facilitated during the COVID lockdown, and is often even worse than that, without any of the mitigating measures seen at the time of the pandemic to help the men cope with this. The reason is said to be “staff shortage”, but the reality is far from that simple. The minimum legal regime under the Prison service’s policy states that prisoners are supposed to be let out for two hours per day. Whilst the specifics of regimes vary from day to day and from prison to prison, it is common for prisoners to live under an illegal regime, often getting no time out of their cell at all.

When HMP Whitemoor functioned at its best, minimum staffing levels for the wings were set at a supervisory officer plus six officers to accommodate the 120 men being unlocked. Weak governors have since given in to unreasonable demands by the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) for more staff, leading to these minimum levels being at least doubled in every area of the prison. 

These stupidly high minimums were met by officers milking the system performing overtime whenever they felt like it. The POA realised the power this has put them in, and so have begun to demand extra bonus payment for any overtime work which the governor of the day simply cannot afford. Until the governor finds what amounts to millions of pounds to appease the POA, they have instructed their members, which is practically every officer in the prison, that they must refuse to perform all overtime and operate on a go slow at other times. The governor calculates a shortage of over 70 officers to plug the gaps created by his obstinate employees, and obviously the POA refuses to negotiate, reducing the minimum staffing levels so it is the prisoners who must suffer. 

Rather than showing compassion for the prisoners stuck in the middle of this dispute, both sides seek to use them to strengthen their positions. The governor chooses not to implement progressive measures to reduce prisoner frustration, instead believing that the eruptions directed at the officers this situation is causing will lead the POA back to the negotiating table. The officers play their part as the POA frontline by attempting to manipulate prisoners into channelling their energy into resisting this oppression through protest and riots, causing a need for even more officers to be called in on each occasion.  

Ultimately, what this industrial stalemate shows is that neither side is burdened by the suffering their decisions and actions are causing. How exactly either of them believes they are performing their responsibility to reform the prisoners within their care is unclear, they are instead demonstrating that with power you need not worry about consequences. This message, which has been reinforced for far too long already, will be exceptionally difficult to alter in the minds of the men who have endured what amounts to psychological torture by their captors purportedly operating for the benefit of society as a public service. When the victims of the HMP Whitemoor regime come to be released from prison, that they will have become better members of the community is a notion from which we should all be disabused.