Читать книгу The Good Prison Guide - I've done more Porridge than Goldilocks - and now I'm going to tell you all about it - Charles Bronson - Страница 7

Let me start out by telling you that, contrary to public opinion, I have never killed anyone … hard to believe, ain’t it! The film director Michael Winner called me a murderer when he wrote about me in his News of the World column. The following week, after he was put straight on the matter, he apologised in the same column and withdrew his remarks … apology accepted.

Why did Michael believe me to be a killer? Simple – public opinion. Another feature in a national newspaper by Chris House had me down as ‘the man, killer and robber …’ It’s an easy mistake to make, and a mistake that has caused me to lose public support for the hell I’ve been put through.

Why is it that a man like me who has served so long behind bars and has been branded the most dangerous con in the UK penal system is considered automatically to be a killer? Why am I mistakenly branded in such a way? I’ve never killed anyone in my life!

Propaganda perpetrated by HM Prison Service has caused me no end of trouble. Sneaky little stories leaked to the press by prison officers only sets out to cut you all off from me; it makes you turn your backs on the ‘no good Bronson’. Well, this book, after you’ve read it, will cause you to have grave concerns about the way HM Prison Service can get away with gross acts of violence against me with the full backing of HM Government’s Home Office.

I do not stand without admitting my own failure as a convict and human being; I do not stand without admitting my own failure as a caring man; and I do not stand without admitting my own failure as an example for young people to look up to. But neither does HM Prison Service stand without being able to admit defeat when it comes to why they haven’t been able to help me and why the prison population is steadily growing.

For those of you who have never cast eyes on the inside of a prison or even a police cell, this book should act as a deterrent. For those of you unfortunate enough to find yourselves lost and forlorn and pushed up against the wall of a prison cell, this book could be your saviour. For those of you already incarcerated in prison, then this book should help pass the time … unless, of course, they’ve banned it! And then you’re not to know what is within, but my thoughts are with all of those in such a situation.

Just about everyone on earth has or will be affected by some sort of crime at least once in his or her lifetime. You’ve all been hurt by crime, even if it’s been indirectly. A member of your family, a close friend or a workmate can cause you to share their pain by virtue of the crime they have had perpetrated against them.

Whole communities can be affected by a sudden monstrous crime carried out against one of their own. Look at how Mary Bell, as a child, caused so much pain and suffering in her community when she murdered her peers. Look at how Brady and Hindley caused so much suffering. Look at how Sutcliffe caused so much blind panic amongst women. Look at how Fred and Rose West preyed on those too weak to defend themselves. Look at how the murder of Sarah Payne caused so much emotional turmoil. Look at how paedophilia causes us to want to kill or, at the very least, punish the perpetrators of evil. Crime affects all of us – you included – without you even necessarily being a victim of a crime?

Doesn’t that tell you something? Doesn’t that explain why we have prisons and why people like me should be locked up for ever and have the key to their cell thrown away? ‘Bollocks’ is what I say to that!

How can I make such a statement? How can I qualify what I mean without causing every good citizen to break out in a sweat? First, read this book and then let it soak in. I intend to show you that prisons are obsolete and that they do not act as a deterrent to crime, neither do they rehabilitate those within their walls … mind you, it’s a good way to keep hundreds of thousands of people employed, isn’t it?

Think about how the economy of any Western country would falter if prisons ceased to exist, but also think about how many others would be employed in other ways. OK, we can’t have paedophiles and child-killers walking the streets, we can’t have evil killers walking the streets and we can’t have any sort of criminal walking the streets. But what about when the day comes and they are legally free to walk the streets of your community amongst you and your children?

Well, that is happening right now; you might be living next-door to a paedophile or, as you walk along your local streets, you’re bound to see someone with a shady past. What if these characters – anyone who has ever had a criminal record, say – were all rounded up and just slung behind bars! Do you know how many millions in this country would be imprisoned? Fucking loads! Bring back the prison ‘hulks’ is what they’d be screaming for!

Where would we imprison them all? I once read that if everyone on earth stood next to each other, then they would all fit on the Isle of Man. Maybe we could do the same with these criminals – stand them all on an island next to each other. We could drop food from a helicopter and keep sharks and piranha fish in a giant moat to seal the island off from all those other nice people in the world.

But, in reality, you know all of that just isn’t possible and if you do believe what I say, then you need to get real. The public is out for revenge against anyone who has committed a crime against them … and you can’t blame them.

I mean, look at Tony Martin of the Bleak House murder. He suffered a sting by two burglars and he reacted in the way any person defending their property should be allowed to. Joe Public is out for blood – he wants revenge. And when he has exacted his revenge, he wants a further gallon of blood by wanting prisoners to suffer. What if it was your little Johnny who’d been shot at Bleak House?

Now look at it another way. What if it was your little Johnny who was doing time in the Grey Bar Hotel? Would you be pleased to see little Johnny beaten or even raped by another con? Would you give the prison officers a pat on the back for knocking some sense into your loved one? Would you congratulate the prison officers who allowed your little Johnny to tear some sheets up, make a noose out of them and hang himself?

You see, prisoners are just as much victims of crime as those they have wronged. When you’re in prison you are a helpless victim, nothing you do or complain about will prevent some sort of malady creeping into your life. You cannot walk away from a situation because there is no place to walk to. You are in an enforced position of having to do as you are told or face the consequences.

What if you were living in a town with 74,000 other occupants, the size of the current prison population? You can’t tell me that there wouldn’t be some sort of crime committed against some individuals, yet in prison all these crimes against individuals are overlooked or brushed under the carpet. Police should be brought in to man the prisons and you should outlaw drug-users by pulling them out and putting them into drying-out institutions on an island somewhere where they can’t get drugs.

The whole prison system has gone tits up and needs an overhaul, just as the prison system was shaken up in the early 1800s when over 50 new prisons were built in England The same should happen now … a shake-up! New systems need to be brought in; the old regime has to go.

The rehabilitative process in our so-called modern-day penal system is a complete failure. Until you know what the real deal is in prison then you cannot begin to understand how it is failing every citizen in this country. Forget the humiliation of prison, forget about the stigma of having your name in the newspapers, start to think about how a whole community has to start surviving the new-found agony of isolation and brutality of prison life.

The Good Prison Guide is about surviving in prison. Just as there are rules in every society, there are written and unwritten rules in any prison. Just as stable behaviour is expected of your peers out there in Civvy Street, so it is expected of prison inmates; even though we are in an unstable and volatile environment, we are expected to remain stable. One minute you can be standing waiting in the dinner queue, and the next minute someone has the top of their head sliced off with a steel dinner tray! In prison, that’s normal and no one would bat an eyelid. Out in ‘civilised’ society where you are, it would involve trauma teams being sent out to help everyone get over the shock! In prison, when that happens, you are banged up in your cell.

What is and what is not acceptable behaviour? I define acceptable behaviour as that which is deemed acceptable by the majority. A tribe of cannibals finds it easy to indulge in the consumption of human flesh, but when those who are revolted by such acts outnumber the rest of the tribe, then it becomes unacceptable. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to eat human flesh. Look at those people who survived that plane crash; they survived for months by eating the flesh of their dead fellow travellers. Suddenly, the rules had changed, and suddenly the survival instinct kicked in and suddenly it was all right to do what was once considered taboo.

Just as the survivors of the plane crash broke the rules that control society, so the public breaks rules every day. So long as you see it as a means of survival, then you will do it; you will break the speed limit while driving your car if you’re late for an appointment, and just as you are not perfect then it also applies to everyone else. Yet you want everyone else to be perfect and adhere to the rules. A speeding motorist doesn’t care about others, yet if anyone was to go speeding along the road they live on … see what I mean? There is not a person living who can say that they have never done or thought about doing something that breaks the rules of society.

The consequence of breaching these rules means someone wants retribution. In a modern society, the way to exact retribution is to have someone sit in judgment and/or mediate. Before the government came along and appointed judges it was up to the village elders or the tribal council to resolve such matters. Their decision was final – no appeals, no nothing.

In 1215, King John introduced the Magna Carta, paving the way as a sort of Bill of Rights for everyone. You had the right to remain silent, and it couldn’t be held against you, but now that right has been changed. Now, if you remain silent and don’t say anything that you later rely on in an open court, then it can harm your defence.

Courts were set up to dispense justice without fear or favour; equal rights for all. No matter who you were, there was a prison just for you. A nice warm dungeon, a homely little fortress beneath the ground or a nice big tower for the well-to-do. Whatever your station in life, there was some place exclusively to lock you up in. And if that wasn’t enough, then they could have you breaking up rocks or pushing a giant grinding wheel around all day long.

Prisons were never designed to assert a rehabilitative influence; this came about when prison reformists meddled and tinkered with the inner machinations of prison life. In order for reform to work, you need commitment from those involved. The system is failing miserably!

Tell me this – how can someone be diagnosed as being mentally ill just because they are a paedophile or sex attacker? What about speeding motorists, drink-drivers, litter louts, burglars and the like? Why is it that people working within the professions have a soft spot for convicted paedophiles and rapists? Suddenly, these academics are all experts in how to treat a convicted sex attacker, but what about the lowly burglar who has been reduced to the status of a convicted crook?

You don’t find many burglars in Broadmoor or Ashworth, I can tell you. The wards are full of sexual deviants, very few are like me. That is why prison cannot work; already, as a prisoner, you are discriminated against. You get out of prison and anyone can call you an ex-con, but dare to call someone a ‘Paki’ and you’re in for it. ‘Paki’ used to be the shortened word for anyone from Pakistan, but it became bastardised by academics and was turned into something derogatory.

It’s the same with the prison stigma; society has been brainwashed into thinking that ex-cons have a disease. The only difference between ex-cons and most of the population is that ex-cons have been caught and convicted! So why should they be discriminated against?

We’ve moved on from prisons being places of incarceration to being places of pain and suffering. In medieval times, such places could be handled by most who were thrown into them. A warm place to sleep and be shielded from the elements was often considered to be a sanctuary. You could even have your own servants at your beck and call as well as having your family stay with you. But look at prison now. You’ve got to be doing life just to qualify to have a budgie in your cell! Things have gone from bad to worse. Why shouldn’t a prisoner be allowed conjugal visits or have a family house within the confines of a prison wall? They allowed it in this country hundreds of years ago. The charter for Human Rights states that a man is allowed to found (start) a family … you cannot found a family from behind bars!

People are used to the home comforts of TV and video, dishwashers, mobile phones, video links, soft furnishings, Playstations, DVD players and the like. Take all of that away from them and sling them into a concrete cell and see how easy it is to break a man’s resolve.

Modern man is supposed to have found himself, found his femininity, as the namby-pamby brigade would have you believe. Should that be the case then you will understand how such an austere place as Strangeways Prison can cause such an extreme state of mental turmoil. Yet people are expected to get through it all and come out as reformed characters after guarding their arses for two or three years or having to suck dick to feed their addictions in order to earn a £5 bag of smack.

Prisons are awash with pretenders, full of what I call ‘charvas’ and wannabes! But when they are alone in their cells and they’ve just had a ‘Fuck off out of my life’ letter from their missus, well … that’s when you can see what prison does to a man.

I am for making prisons obsolete … easy for me to say, but I bet a lot of free people would say that, too. I know what a lot of others in the ‘hang ’em’ brigade would say, too – they say that you can’t have lethal criminals walking the streets and that society needs protecting from them. This is true, people do need protecting from all these mentally ill people, and why can’t they be regarded as mentally ill, I ask?

Perhaps not in my lifetime, but eventually, there will be fewer and fewer prisons with more and more centres for the therapeutic treatment of offenders. Offending, you see, is a state of mind … an illness. Prisons are no answer to what is needed but, in the meantime, we have to tolerate such places and, while we have to, we may as well make them into better places.

I hope that this book goes some way to helping reform how prisons are run and how they are set out and how they treat people. Oh, I forgot to say that the cure for paedophiles is to hang them up by their balls for an hour and then see if the re-offend. Rapists would have the same punishment and on a second conviction would have surgical removal of their tackle … without anaesthetic! And that is how it would go for all sexual attackers and the likes. They would be discriminated against in a positive way. And anyone who came out of the woodwork to save them would be equally as done against … who can befriend a paedophile … yuk!

By giving you an insight into prisons, I hope that you can prepare yourself for the day of your incarceration. Hey, it might never happen, but who knows what’s around the next corner? Shit, as they say, happens. You’ll be glad you read this book, you’ll be glad that Bronco showed you the way ahead.

As for you old lags out there, you know the score and you know what lies ahead. You’ve endured it and been through it, you all deserve a winner’s medal. Wear a T-shirt for me, will ya?

When you’re behind bars, you have no control over your food, clothing or any of the details of your life. You live within a framework of strict supervision and control, whether you are banged up in a prison cell or working as a day-release prisoner.

The control is not reliant on prison walls or cell bars – it is regulated by the powers invested into the custodians of that particular system.

The real meaning of a con’s punishment is that he or she is wholly subject to his or her custodians and can do only what they allow or direct. This is when you value the right citizens have to freedom from restraint, which is a precious right, and the loss of that right to freedom is a severe deprivation.

Just imagine you have been taken hostage and illegally held by your captors, and let’s assume you suffer a grave injury. The courts would award you a massive payout. And this is true even if your captor treated you very nicely.

But when an offender is held in legal custody, he or she suffers a grave punishment, however free from punitive conditions their treatment might be. What about the prisoner who hardly gets any letters or visits compared to his peers? Isn’t he being discriminated against? What about the prisoner who is forced to accept visits under what are called ‘closed’ conditions, in which he is placed behind a bulletproof screen and is not allowed even the minimum of human contact from his visitors? These are very distressing circumstances, the prisoner being wholly cut off from his family, friends and all familiar life. Their crime also affects their family. Prison has been described as ‘a monastery of men unwilling to be monks.’

Prison does not just take a person’s liberty from them; it also punishes on an unremitting scale without fear or favour.