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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37, No. 10. May 22, 1974

Life under screws at Witako prison

page 10

Life under screws at Witako prison

The following article was compiled from notes by Stephen Gerald Smith, who recently completed a two year sentence for narcotics offences. Most of his lag was spent in Witako Prison, Trentham.

While much of what he says may strike sociology or criminology students as unscientific, Steve Smith's account has an authenticity far more closer to the bone than the sterile ravings from lecture halls.

Many of his notes we could not print because they were "defamatory". However as far as we are able we will continue to attack the numerous bad aspects of our prison system. Hopefully this article and others to follow will stimulate some discussion on prisons and justice. Around this university, for instance, there must be countless experts whose theories are just waiting to be aired or put into practice.........

Witako Prison

Witako. A prison in the style of a farm, situated at the back of Trentham, secreted among the pinetrees. Home for between 130 and 180 convicts and their keepers, of which there are 40, including administration staff. An island that few know about and fewer visit.

Firstly, who are the inmates, the so-called criminals? I define criminal as one whose way of life is devoted to crime and into this category come compulsive rapists and murderers, professional burglars, compulsive frauders, kleptomaniacs, and persistent drug pushers (if there are any such people in NZ). These are people who do not care to conform to society and repeatedly commit offences against the law. This is often the only way of life known to them.

There are many who commit offences who are not like the above but are people who have been aroused to extremes of passion and have commited murders or rapes. Then there are those who perhaps burgle once or twice with friends for the sake of conformity, or who are brought on by the undulating pleasures of alcohol or other drugs. Or quiet drug lovers who are persistently hassled by undercover cops to supply dope and then arrested (the crime thus having been investigated by the police).

Inmates are generally poor people who could not afford lawyers to provide them with a good defence. Inmates tend not to have many genuinely caring friends. They are often people sick of being slaves to the capitalist entrepreneurs. They have found the long term effects of trying to raise their standard of living from the poor to the well off much too arduous and a waste of life. The only way open to them as far as they're concerned is to raise money in some fast easy manner.

This is especially so when they see the riches some people have and how easy life is for them. The only way to achieve wealth when you are an uneducated poor person sick of being a slave to the wealthy is through crime. The only way to rid society of crime is to distribute wealth and power equally and to devalue the worth of material possessions. Admittedly this is incredibly hard. Crimes of passion (murder, rape etc) may always be with us.

The biggest injustice in the courts today is the status of the criminal. White collar criminals (such as accountants, crooked cops, embezzlers) are invariably given lighter sentences than a poor Maori or Islander. They are able to afford the best lawyers, the court looks upon them as having made a slight mistake or error of judgement and usually convicts and dismisses the criminal or lets him pay a fine which however substantial never hurts the guy. This happens mainly because they are of the same social status as the judges and magistrates.

Crooked justice is what it amounts to. We have a so-called democracy with so called equality before the law, but since justice was first handed out by the kings or lords of the court, a blind eye has been turned to the crime of the wealthy and powerful. Judges are on an equal footing with the higher echelons in society and being sometimes extremely dependent upon them for survival they do not wish to punish them. Would you punish your brother or best friend in such a manner? This is not true justice then and needs to be rectified. Maybe members of the poorer classes should sit in judgement of the rich. Admittedly this system would have its disadvantages but I feel it would be more just than what we have at present. The magistrates courts are police courts and weigh heavily against the poorer people

Now to deal with emotional crimes. Murder is generally due to a person being over-wrought, an anger usually associated with psychological frustrations. Treatment should involve pacifying the person through education. Imprisonment just adds to the frustrations which on release might induce another murder or result in a malajusted person.

Rape is similar to murder, in being a symptom of frustration, except the frustrations are sexual. Isolating people for five to ten years without female company doesn't seem to decrease these frustrations.

Nor does confinement with a total male population do anything to help sort out the child molesters.

For homosexuals confinement with a bunch of randy males is an absurd punishment.

Prisons then serve only as a place of isolation or exile. A place where people go through so much anxiety that on release they feel vengeful and very frustrated. Is it surprising then that such people often offend again and indeed many very soon after release? During 18 months in jail I've seen and heard of many people returning. The sad part is that it is usually their friends who instigate the crimes, they being dragged along conforming to their friends actions and because they know no better.

Prison teaches very few lessons. The ones who don't reoffend are intelligent or have been imprisoned on their first occasion for such a long time that further offence would mean the rest of their life behind bars. Prison is just a living hell of frustrations and not being able to do what comes naturally. The result then is a lot of frustrated people released out into a hustling-bustling society. Although Witako is meant to be a reformatory prison very little reform in showing the inmates how to live an alternative way of life is given. Education, which is voluntary, is the only aid in this direction. Otherwise jail means wasted years or months of life.

Upon release you find your friends hard to talk to (especially with younger people who are changing constantly). They're in a different scene, doing and living different things — while you still feel the same as you were 18 months or however long ago when you first went in. This means the released inmate (especially unmarried youths) must start their lives anew, building up new friendships, building a career, etc.

This is a very hard task; many opt out and go back to crime, something which to them is continuous. Friends are hard to find for anyone in this world today, and with the psychological regression bought about by prison living, socialising becomes increasingly difficult as the lag grows longer.

"A robot factory run by robots"

page 11

No wonder then that a long termer who makes good friends behind the walls either sticks with them on release, perhaps getting into trouble again. Or he just can't handle society and commits a crime so as to be back inside with his old buddies again.

This actually happens! And very often! A classic case came before my eyes just before my own sentence was up.

A 72-year-old man who had been in and out of jail more or less continuously since the 1930s was in on his seventh jail sentence (being 2½ years for using fraudulent cheques). The longest he had stayed out of prison for one time was two and a half months. He is a compulsive frauder and life on the outside means nothing to him. He has no friends, nothing to interest him except booze and horses, and no reason for living out there. Inside he is a good cook (by prison standards) and is highly respected by all the inmates, both young and old, and by the screws. He has security in the form of regular meals and a bed to sleep in which on the outside he would find hard to keep, being easily attracted to booze. Jail then has done nothing for him but destroy his life as a free willed human being.

What was called for was psychiatric help on his second or third sentencing if not on his first offence. To reoffend continuously must surely show something lacking in stability and to offer him no help is inhumane. Judges and magistrates destroy souls willingly,. Perhaps judges and magistrates should live for a month or so as inmates in prisons around the country as part of their training prior to their being sworn in. They have never felt the humiliation of being behind bars yet with great pomp and splendour they commit people to a situation they know nothing about. And they do this with the belief that they are doing the right thing. The average inmate needs help by way of communication and friendship and help to get a footing in life. Prisons do exactly the opposite.

Next we regress to the screws. The bully boys of the place. Most (if not all) of the screws are uneducated. They have rarely been outside the Wellington (if even the Trentham) area, have childish dispositions (constantly "smacking" the inmates on the back of the hand in a dehumanising, demoralising and embarrassing fashion) and are just plain out of touch with the world. The kings of a repressive, oppressive island territory.

Often the inmate is more mature and intelligent than his jailer. All prisoners are restricted in their thoughts and actions by screws standing over them. This often causes neurotic withdrawal and in some cases, results in a breakdown of constructive thought because no outlet is available.

Criticism of the prison structure and system is frowned upon and can have severe repercussions in regard to the release date of an inmate and the special privileges he receives while inside. The prison aims to manufacture thought patterns parallel to those of the superintendent and his busy little workers who often arrive at work horribly drunk. What fine examples....A robot factory run by robots.

This is one of the biggest psychological hardships induced by prisons — the regulation of behaviour and thought. An individual who has a different (and to jailers a weird and undignified) approach to life has difficulty in expressing himself due to the scorn heaped upon him by the guards who do not understand his motivation. The goons often interrupt people in their studies or activities, thinking it is a great joke. Often I would be trying to meditate and a screw would rattle the wooden doors of the cell to disturb me. People doing yoga wanted a quiet atmosphere and would be subject to the laughs and insolent comments of passing guards. Sometimes screws wreak havoc among once tidy cells in search of "contraband" like coffee or biscuits.

The rancid odour of repression hangs over the prison. In a childish way the goons tease, belittle, and make the object of sarcasm and laughter anyone who is slightly different in thought or of more Intelligence than themselves. Mainly this is jealousy. These attitudes are reresentative of 80-90% of the screws at Wi tako, who out of the three other institutions I have been in, Mt Eden, Hautu and Paremoremo are the most childish, ignorant, bumbling, antagonistic screws I've known. They help to make the place a living hell not so much physically but psychologically. And psychological repression leaves a heavy mark on people upon their release: people finding it hard to adjust to an adult world of free thought. Mental blocks are created which are often impossible to rectify. Is this why people are sent to jail? To be hampered and embittered?

Given the standards of the Justice Department the officers in charge do their job well. But to the prisoners who they control the reality seems somewhat different.

Administration screws are often of the same stock as the prison officers described above. Wi Tako has at the moment a superintendent who is Victorian in his attitudes and outlook to life. A puritan. And a man who is afraid to act under any circumstances unless under jurisdiction of the Justice Department or when forced to by the threat of prisoners' action. If life at Wi Tako has become any easier over the last year it is due to the Justice Department and not Mr Henry Wash (the present superintendent).

Wash takes weeks upon weeks to approve requests for such simple things as hobby items with a restrictive attitude towards any constructive or intelligent prisoners. Although he presents a facade of kindness, equality of inmates, fairness of judgements, non-bias, and being the patron of all people trying to better themselves. The truth is readily revealed at general meetings of inmates. These meetings, theoretically held once a month, but in practice usually occurring twice every three months are between the whole inmate population, the Superintendent and the welfare officer. Favourite comment by Mr Wash is "I'll think about it".

Drawing of a large screw being driven into a head

Portrait photo of a prison warden

Hardly any decisions are made either one way or the other and he usually falls back on the excuse that the Justice Department must approve first. The results of his purported requests to the Justice Department are rarely heard. Usually because of lengthy discussions and unwill ingness on Mr Wash's behalf to supply a decision half of the items on the agenda never get the chance of being discussed. Therefore they must be referred to the next meeting, by which time the items are no longer of interest or value.

Is it too much to ask Mr Wash with his lengthy speeches to visitors about how he is trying to help the inmates and rehabilitation programmes, to have a meeting every fortnight? And is it too much to ask the Justice Department To pay the poor guy in some way for these hours (in the interests of helping fellow humans and their rehabilitation)?

Along with Mr Wash we have Mr Percivel Anstiss, the Deputy Superintendent. Although a lot quieter now as he prepares himself for The Chair he still at times produces his old bullheaded presumptuous style, he is a very stria authoritarian, cough in his language and his actions. He even speaks harshly to his own officers. Because of his strict conventional attitudes he dislikes seeing people doing the extra ordinary and unconventional while doing his best, using banal sarcasm, to belittle and ridicule those who are individuals. He likes to exert his power and show he's boss by ordering people around.

Both these men, with the help of their screws, exerting power over people who can't fight back, have made prisoners feel that Wuako is a concentration camp. The abuse of power and the hindering of constructive thought and action do nothing to encourage the prisoners respect, let alone their rehabilitation.

"Prison teaches very few lessons"