Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

Today’s prisons do not have too many serious or violent events, although
there are verbal battles and an occasional stabbing, perhaps in a kitchen or
a workshop, and there may even be killings. But the male-on-male gang
rapes, a classic case of administration-tolerated-behaviour, generally has
faded because prisoners have now been granted rights, and this means the
administration has a duty of care. As it has been the case with wrongful
imprisonments, such lack of duty of care costs the taxpayer dearly as courts
do not hesitate to compensate generously when violations are proven.
Since the late 1960s, most of the prison population consists of individuals
who have some kind of addiction involving drugs. Before drugs became the
prison currency it was ‘might is right’, where the physically strong bully rules
the roost. With the advent of drugs the purely physical has been augmented
by softening mental processes. The direct consequence of this in prisons is
that an easing of physical authority is all pervasive. So began the humanising
of prison politics – prisoners are humans and they, too, have some rights.
A new non-aggressive politics of prisoner rehabilitation began, using
Auschwitz and its legendary pornographic excesses as the example of pure
evil. After nearly four decades of following such politics the result is clear:
7–8 out of 10 prisoners are inside because of drugs. As the Americans
designate it, incidents of moral turpitude in that there has been some form
of physical violence occasioned by drug consumption.
‘Democratic’ western nations spend huge sums on rehabilitation programs
in prison, including daily dosages of prescription drugs that substitute for
the real thing. This does not mean that the real stuff is not available inside.
Wandsworth Prison outside London, Europe’s largest prison, holds about
1700 prisoners at any one time: prior to assuming duty officers must sit in a
chair to have their body x-rayed for any swallowed or inserted object.
While I was in Mannheim Prison in 1999 there was a court case involving a
former female prison guard who had smuggled a mobile phone into prison
in her private parts. She then handed it to a prisoner who then continued to
conduct his drug business from within the prison, until he was sprung by a
fellow prisoner who felt cheated out of a deal.
This episode alludes to another factor contributing to the softening of any
prison atmosphere – the employment of female prison officers in all-male
prisons. But as in all human interactions the battle-of-the-wills comes to the
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