Charles Bronson - The Good Prison Guide

For anyone who has never been to prison and served time, understanding what prison is all about is well nigh impossible, but I will try to explain it to you. Remember when you were a child maybe you played hide-and -seek you looked for the best place to hide. Usually, the hiding place was a cramped space in a dark and dingy cupboard; that experience might have been the nearest you will ever come to understanding what being in prison is really about.

Let me tell you a little about prison segregation units, as they are where both Charlie Bronson and I spent most of our prison life. Charlie continues to experience these units whilst I have long since left them behind. Even so, the memory of them is branded deep within my mind.

I have been given the almost impossible job of having to describe the hell on earth these segregation units represent. I dont even think the imagination of horror writer Stephen King could impart the degradation, the pain and suffering these places create for mankind.

These places are extreme; they are places where even the rodents and cockroaches only prowl around in a last desperate attempt to find food. Finding a cockroach in one of these places is like finding a long-lost friend; it is your only friend!

According to how dangerous you have been labelled, between two and ten screws await you when your cell is unlocked. Should you decide to fight them, then you can be certain that however many are there at the start, twice that amount will come running to the aid of their colleagues. And, as Charlie says, no matter how many times you land a punch on them, you will receive ten back for every one you throw.

You will find yourself stripped naked and forced into a piece of equipment called a body belt. This is forcibly wrapped around your midriff and is fastened so tight that every breath becomes so painful that you wish your breathing would stop, but it cant its what keeps you alive! The belts come in various sizes, but you can count on them wrapping you with one which is always a couple of sizes too small.

Then your hands are cuffed to each side of the body belt in a cuff that is attached to it. Youre now trussed up and not able to defend yourself from the boots and fists that come flying your way.

In the days when the liquid cosh was around, you were forcibly injected with it; all that was needed was a simple authorisation from the MO (medical officer), so the following morning the doctor would come in and sign all these back-dated authorisations for the screws. In effect, then, you would have been forcibly injected without the prior authorisation of the doctor, but what doctor would defy the system and own up to this having happened none!

You are then slung into a strip-cell that only has dirt on the floor and muck on the walls; your brain is drained and your body is weakened. Anyone without a strong mind could crack in such a place. That is how it was when I first met Charlie in Armley Prison in Leeds almost 30 years ago! Ever since, we have remained good friends and things have changed in some of the prisons but not all!

Currently, Charlie is in Wakefield Prison, in the Special Unit. Hes totally isolated from mainstream and other high-security prisoners because hes considered double dangerous. These secure conditions enforced upon Charlie can vary in the degree of degradation and violence inflicted on him, depending on which prison hes in. Although the staff within certain prisons might be welcoming and understanding, as they seem to be where Charlie is currently housed, this doesnt mean that the conditions are acceptable. Being locked up on your own for 23 hours out of a 24-hour day cannot be considered humane.

In such an environment, your whole existence becomes regimented and controlled by regular events. You become used to the hour of day when you are given the free run of the exercise cage or yard. When the appointed time arrives, come rain or shine, you want your exercise it becomes a ritual. No matter whether the prison has a shortage of staff, no matter whether the Governors wife has died you expect to be unlocked at the appointed time.

You expect to be let out of your cell at the appointed time for your weekly shower; you expect the library trolley to be on time; you time your day by your meals. And when any of these patterns is broken, you can become a very angry and disgruntled person. Thats all youve got in your life. Nothing else matters; nothing else can matter. Everyone has forsaken you, or so it seems, and youre on your own, you have to stand up for your own rights. Many flounder by the wayside, but a few like Charlie and I grasped the nettle of solitary confinement. We bathed in all its gory glory, we filled our senses with the infusion of pain and we embraced the unremitting violence inflicted on us. We braved the coldness that winter brought and, in the summer, we stifled in the heat. We couldnt escape the elements.

These units are nothing but a punishment inflicted on those within by Prison Service HQ. They argue that segregation is not a punishment but merely a tool to stop dangerous prisoners mixing with their fellow cons. Isolation within the confines of a prison is legalised brainwashing. Isolation is sensory depravation at its best or worst. The doors are several feet thick or so it seems, they might as well be, as you cant hear anything going on beyond them. Youve got two doors in your cell, one opens to another, and thats why you cant hear whats going on. This is why a cockroach can become your friend, a living thing. Never mind if theres life on Mars, just seeing another living thing in your cell can be just as awesome.

What alternatives are there for the prisoner in isolation, what can they spend their time doing? Recreation is limited. Education means studying in your cell on your own; you have to find the strength from within. Religion is no longer forced upon you, its there if you want it. But thats it.

How do you go about challenging such a state of isolation? You can do it physically or legally. Years ago, we did it physically, but now weve got the European courts behind us, and some are doing it legally. That is what Charlie is starting to understand that the pen is mightier than the sword. Until the courts actually challenge and outlaw these isolation units and make them obsolete and illegal, then I know that someone somewhere will be suffering in one of these places.

To give you an idea of what its like being in isolation, I will tell you about the time Charlie and I had a little mix up which was caused by the paranoia that such isolation creates in prisoners.

Charlie once sent me a letter to the effect that he believed me to be making fun of his life sentence. I have still got that letter, in which he wrote do not make fun of a life sentence. Those were the words he used for one reason or another I dont know why but Charlie is Charlie. Of course, me being me, I blew my top completely!

I lost it, I really did, and, as a consequence of what I did out of temper, I could have been killed that day his letter flipped me. I actually went into Newcastles East End and put my gloves on because I was just so wound up. It was a slagging letter and that was just part of it. I went to this boxing club, and you are talking about a lot of big lads there, you are talking about big bouncers. At my age, I shouldnt even have been in the ring.