Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 860-879)

8 FEBRUARY 2005

MR LEVI SMITH, MR AFRIM MAHMUTI, MR LASELLS HAZEL AND MR MOHAMMED SALEH

  Q860 Mr Chaytor: That person's job is to make sure—

  Mr Mahmuti: Make sure I go there on time.

  Q861 Mr Chaytor: At the local college?

  Mr Mahmuti: Yes.

  Q862 Helen Jones: I know when you come in you get an assessment done on your reading and writing skills and so on, but it has just gone through my head listening to you that some of you must have some other useful skills, practical skills. Levi, you saying you had been a traveller so you must have a lot of practical skills that I would not have a clue about. Did anyone sit down with any of you and work out what you are good at, what skills you had that might be taken a bit further? Did that happen at all?

  Mr Smith: No.

  Q863 Helen Jones: Would you think that would be useful if it did happen?

  Mr Smith: Maybe, maybe.

  Q864 Chairman: But Levi you seem to have grasped this opportunity to get your basic skills going?

  Mr Smith: Yes, definitely.

  Q865 Chairman: From what you said you went straight in to say you have got some real skills that you never had before.

  Mr Smith: Yes, I have.

  Chairman: All four of you seem to be thriving on it.

  Helen Jones: You are all the success stories, are you?

  Q866 Mr Chaytor: Can I ask about that. The fact that you are here is because you obviously see a value in the education facilities, the education classes here, but what about other lads who do not. Can you give us one or two examples, not naming them but just tell us a little bit about other inmates who have no interest whatsoever and why do you think that is, what can be done about it, and what is likely to happen to them when they leave?

  Mr Saleh: The reason why inmates act like that is because for example most of the people in prison especially adults on my side, the B side, when they go to music all they can see is either a drum or a keyboard but there are some of them who are more experienced and want to be qualified to play a different instrument. That is what they should be having different instruments that people can do instead of one keyboard and a little recorder and a drum player. That is not good enough. A lot of people come in, see that, and then they just muck about, get into a fight and then start drawing pictures on the wall.

  Q867 Mr Chaytor: That is just the limitation of the facilities?

  Mr Saleh: Yes.

  Q868 Mr Chaytor: Are there a lot of the inmates here who have got an ability to play music when they come in? Is that a strong feature?

  Mr Mahmuti: Most of the teenagers like music.

  Q869 Mr Chaytor: Like it but that does not mean they can play an instrument, or would they like to play?

  Mr Saleh: They would like to play because most of them sing, they MC, they rap, that is why they would prefer to have all different instruments, so they can use different instruments with different beats so they can rhyme it up with the song they are singing.

  Q870 Chairman: So you would like to see a greater range of music and taking music more seriously?

  Mr Saleh: Yes.

  Chairman: Okay. Any other things you would suggest? Paul, you have been very quiet.

  Q871 Paul Holmes: Just to ask do the prison officers do any of the training or is it all teachers who come in from outside?

  Mr Saleh: It is just the teachers who come in from outside.

  Q872 Paul Holmes: Is that good or bad? Would you prefer to have prison officers involved?

  Mr Saleh: I would prefer to have prison officers as well because we see them more. They are all over the place. If we are going to the gym or going to the toilet or the next wing or we are visiting, we see them more than teachers. If they are having a break they could sit down and have a chat and they could give you advice. It is better to come from both sides instead of coming from one side.

  Q873 Paul Holmes: It is not strictly on education but how much tension is there between the inmates and the prison officers? For example, some of the officers I was talking to this morning were saying that they thought that attacks on prison officers were becoming a bit more common now.

  Mr Hazel: What it is like is prison officers at the end of the day are officers so whatever they say goes basically, but that does not mean they are right, so certain officers think that because they have got the badge and radio that means they can tell us what to do. They say "jump" and we say "how high?" That is what happens. To tell you the truth if you respect certain officers they respect you but certain officers try to take it past the limit. If, say, one person does something, then that is it, they are telling us our social is over because of one person's silly mistake or what someone else does. They try to take it out on all of us. Some people get a grudge and that grudge builds and builds and builds.

  Mr Saleh: Then they start to hate all the governors even the ones they showed respect before. It just kicks off from there.

  Q874 Paul Holmes: So do you ever get any of that tension between yourselves and the teachers or is it just between yourselves and the officers?

  Mr Hazel: If it gets out of hand teachers just call for the officers.

  Mr Saleh: They press the green button on the alarm and that is it.

  Q875 Chairman: Does that happen very often?

  Mr Saleh: It happens a lot. When I work in education it happens a lot.

  Mr Hazel: Sometimes it is over pettiness and people like to instigate and stir things up, so it does happen a lot.

  Mr Saleh: It starts when people talk about earnings, how much money they make, what drugs they used to sell, and that is how it starts off. They both start to argue, especially if they are from different ends, and it starts to build up and someone can say something wrong that will get to the person and that is when it kicks off.

  Q876 Chairman: This is in the classroom and people are falling out? They are not falling out with the teacher, they are falling out with each other?

  Mr Saleh: When the guv comes in they change it and take their anger out on the guv and it kicks off with the guv after.

  Mr Smith: When the lads come in on induction week the lads are on there for a day or two days and they are shifted off onto the wing. They should spend more time on that induction wing and get taught a lot more about the prison before they get moved off to another wing. When the lads come in, the guvs do not know nothing about these lads, how serious are they on the outside, what they have done in the past on the outside. When they come into the other wings the guvs do try and push these lads to a certain limit basically and these lads cannot take that much pressure for what they are giving it to them, and that is why the lads break out sometimes.

  Mr Saleh: That is not a smart idea because when they come to Feltham they go straight to the officer, talk to them the first day they come in, and the next day they get moved to the next wing and they do not know nothing about them, their background, what they are good at, what they can do, so when they get shipped out to the next wing something happens and then whatever happens that person gets into trouble for it, not the governor, the one that took him to the next wing. When it is their fault they try to get out of it and then blame the victim for whatever he did when they should have let him stay here longer at least for about a month to find out what they are good at, what they can do, what wing is suitable for them because there are all these different wings here which are suitable for different people.

  Q877 Chairman: You think induction and assessment should be longer?

  Mr Saleh: Yes.

  Q878 Paul Holmes: A lot of people are here for less than a month anyway. Is that a problem because quite a lot of people are in and out fairly quickly?

  Mr Hazel: What happens is some people have short sentences, some people have long sentences and some people are on remand so they might be here for a couple of days and then they go. It is more a thing where if you are on induction and you do not know anything about prison, as soon as you get onto that induction wing that is what you see first. You do not know what is happening but you know there are other wings just like this with more people more settled in. When you first come into prison you are not settled in because it is your first time, you do not know what is happening. You do not know what education looks like, you do not know what the gym looks like, you do not know how everybody else feels, so with induction they should let you settle down until you are more humble and you know you can talk to the officers. When you come in you do not talk to officers straightaway as much as we do on our normal wing. On our normal wing we have fun and play games but on induction you do not open your mouth unless you are spoken. So I reckon what should happen is stay on induction for at least a month so they can settle in properly and then get moved because you have some wings where there is not even one person that is on basic and other wings where you have got all ten people on basic. When you are on basic you are barely out of your cell.

  Q879 Chairman: What does "basic" mean?

  Mr Hazel: No TV and—


 
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