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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