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Dr Masimba Mavaza

There is always something walking into receiving and discharging on my first day in prison. I felt what seemed to be a million butterflies bouncing off the inside of my stomach. 

Here I was, a 33- year-old first-time offender carrying a 10 year sentence on my shoulders.  I still believe that the 10 years were given because of my colour. It would have been a different story if I was in Africa. 

The guards didn’t offer any help or advice; they just barked orders at me and slammed my door shut. I was put in a cell containing a very dirty mattress, a blocked toilet, and a green cover that someone had torn strips out of to make lines.

 A “line” is a strip of fabric that is attached to objects so that they can be swung out of the window and passed from cell to cell.  I had no pillow, there was no heating, and there were cockroaches scurrying around the floor.

I rang the buzzer on my cell door to try and attract a guard’s attention, so he could get the toilet unblocked for me. I was told, “Don’t ring the bell unless it’s an emergency.”

 I said “It is! My toilet is blocked, and I don’t have a pillow.”

 The guard laughed and said: “Welcome to prison, son. This is not a hotel. You’ll end up in the block if you buzz for no reason again.” 

The “block” is jail slang for the segregation unit, where they put prisoners who disobey the rules.

One of the officers called names from a clip board that he held in his hands.

 When he called, my name I stood on the wall just as the guys before me had been instructed to do.

My heart began to pick up its pace as I stood next to two older criminals who were having a conversation about all the prisons they’ve been to and all the violent acts they’d participated in and witnessed.

 Hearing these gruesome stories spiked my blood pressure. Still I kept a stern face while trying to hide how I really felt…petrified!

While listening to them, my mind began to drift. I started asking myself, “Am I supposed to be at this particular prison? Would these older convicts take advantage of me because of my age?”

I heard someone yell. I snapped out of my nervous and scared thoughts before asking, “Did you call my name?

“About three times! When someone calls your name I suggest you answer, kid.”

The officer pointed to a door that was slightly open. Entering the room, I noticed two officers sitting at a table covered with brown folders.

 One of the officers looked up from whatever he was reading before telling me to shut the door and have a seat.

 As soon as I sat down I looked at the two officers. One was fat and the other had a pair of brass glasses sitting on top of his bony nose.

The officer with the skinny face said: “It seems that you’ll be spending the rest of your days with us. They gave you 10 years.” 

I was still trying my best to come to grips with all that time.

“Well, I have a few questions I want to ask you before we place you into general population, okay?”

I shook my head up and down indicating that I understood him.

“Do you know any reason that you cannot be placed in general population?” 

I didn’t know what to say so I took a minute to rethink his question.

He saw my hesitant reaction and asked, “Do you have any enemies? Are you a homosexual? Have you cooperated with law enforcement? Are you scared to go into general population?”

I shook my head no to all his questions, but in all honesty I was scared. Who wouldn’t be scared of entering prison for the first time in a foreign land? 

“We are going to have to hear you verbally say no to the questions, young man,” the fat officer said.

“No,” slipped off my tongue before I had the chance to really think about my safety. I hope I didn’t let my false pride place me in a den full of lions. I was a lot more scared during my first day inside.

 England has much more of an edge to it. Before being taken to my cell, the guards confiscated all items of clothing that could potentially be viewed as containing sectarian symbols.

 That included anything blue, as the colour blue can be used to signify Protestantism. 

That left me with hardly anything remaining, as most of my clothes were blue.

When I landed on the wing, I was appalled to find out that I was the only black African. A lot of British people hate the black Africans. 

I found it difficult to understand some of the thick Northern accents, and was confused by the prison jargon the inmates and guards used.

 Some of the other prisoners had committed horrific crimes, including one man who had cut someone’s head off.

 Overall, my first day inside was extremely frightening and daunting.

I quickly realised that the best way to see yourself through is to be tough and say very little. If anything happens in your wing it was easy to blame it on the black prisoner and get punished for it. 

You worked around six hours a day for around £10 pay per week. The type of work varied, and there were a number of opportunities available.

Other than the essential security of the prison, just about everything else is done by inmates. That includes cleaning, painting, cooking, laundry and prison industry, which brings in a little income for the prison.

Prison industry could be anything from making clothing, items for charities or even CD scratching – destroying unsold copies of albums.

The work was very mundane and generally, from what I saw, didn’t meet the usual health and safety guidelines. There were benefits to working – it was something to do, and even menial tasks helped to pass the time.

More worrying for me was that inmates were punished if they chose not to work; forced labour is supposed to be something from the past, but it’s alive today in British prisons.

The morning work session lasted until about midday, then we would be sent back to the wings to collect lunch.

We were then locked up for about two hours so the staff could  have their lunch.

Around 2pm, we would be sent back to work until around 5pm

After the second shift, we would be served dinner – or tea as prisons call it – in your cell.

It’s not so bad if you had the bottom bunk – you could sit there and eat – but if you were top bunk, it was much easier to have your dinner on your knee, sitting on the toilet seat.

Prison food was of very poor quality and it was only helped by the choice available.

Usually, five or six main course options were available for dinner and there was always a vegetarian option. Menu sheets were issued a week in advance so you could choose your meal. Failing to get the form returned to the wing orderly would mean you had the default meal, which was always the vegetarian option, for the next week.

The menu was different each week, but was the same every four weeks, so after a few months, the options became very mundane.

There were provisions for low-fat options too, but these were only ever given to inmates who had a note from the doctor. 

These meals were separately packaged and were individually labelled with the inmate’s name on them.

The meals were generally stews and curries – anything that could be made in a large pot. 

And they were very high in carbohydrates – more filling than nutritious – and pasta, potatoes, rice etc were the base of most meals.

I once collected my meal and asked an officer what she thought it was – she told me she wasn’t sure but it looked like somebody had already eaten it.

Breakfast was collected the night before, while you collected tea. This was a small, single portion of cereal, a small carton of UHT milk, four tea bags, a couple of sachets of jam and a couple of pats of butter.

Lunch was a sandwich, usually cheese, and a packet of crisps.

A couple of times a week, we were given half a small pork pie, which were jokingly called porkpiecicles as they were usually still frozen.

During Ramadan, a special menu was available to Muslim inmates.

This was delivered to each cell late in the evening to be eaten overnight. The food provided was much better quality than the usual fare, sometimes produced by a professional chef brought into the prison.

There was actually a ban on inmates converting to Islam in the run up to Ramadan because it was common to do so just for the food, which was often traded.

What you should know about ghosting

Normally, when an inmate is moved to another jail, they are advised a few days in advance.

In some circumstances, the move may come after a request has been made or an application process has been completed.

 The few days’ notice gives the prisoner the chance to say goodbyes to the other guys and inform family and friends on the outside of the move.

When somebody is ghosted, they are usually told the night before, after bang-up, to allow them to pack belongings but not mix with other inmates – making it impossible to settle any scores or collect debts.

They don’t have access to telephones to inform anybody on the outside either.

In extreme cases, the inmate would only be told where they are going as they are being processed for transport the next morning so nobody on the wing would know.

Normal transfers are scheduled and arranged in advance, they’re used to manage population levels and for an inmate to progress through the prison system. Often, a ‘fit for travel’ medical assessment would be made.

Ghosting is more of an emergency measure and could be for a number or reasons.

There may be intelligence that the inmate is in imminent danger, is himself causing problems on the wing or to split up family members and co-defendants.

In the most extreme cases – usually somebody being disruptive – they would be taken to segregation (the block) and never seen again.

A pair of flip-flops is an essential part of the prison kit. They have to be purchased, but well worth the investment.

Once a week, there was a ‘kit change’ where clothing and bedding could be exchanged for clean items.

At this time, other items such as toiletries – shower gel, shaving gel, toothpaste and toilet rolls etc could be obtained.

The shower gel was in single use sachets, with a maximum of three sachets for the week.

It was perfectly adequate, but I preferred to shower daily so it was in short supply for me.

From the weekly canteen – a shopping service to purchase carefully selected ‘essentials’ – it was possible to buy branded shower gel, shampoo, shaving cream and roll-on deodorants.

Aerosol cans were strictly forbidden.

With prison wages being around £10 per week, and the vast majority of prisoners being smokers, most of the available money was spent on tobacco and associated products; toiletries were a luxury.

  There was no menu which caters for African appetite. Being in a foreign prison is the worst thing to do. The whole cultural differences do come into play. As a prisoner you have no rights at all. Your rights were traded the day you committed. It becomes worse when you become a foreigner. 

From the prison guard to other prisoners no one respects a foreigner. Especially a black foreigner. When I was released from prison, I was in a different scope. 

In our next article we will continue with life after prison. 

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