Today I wish to write about my observations of my fellow prisoners. I’m surrounded by inmates from so many different backgrounds from doctors to career beggars but I do see some common threads. The three that I see are an odd sense of self, delusion and an inability to resist desire.

When a child grows up, we can observe a development of their understanding of their “self” so that maybe by the age of 43, they become aware that there are other, separate people in the world. Perhaps around the age of 7 they realise that actually they are not the centre of the universe and then somewhere around 15 they begin to understand their own place. Their “self” develops from being the only thing that matters to the sometimes crushing realisation that they are merely a speck of dust on the world.

However, many of the prisoners surrounding me have not developed their sense of self. Through their actions they show that they really do feel that they are at the centre of things. The demands they make of their family and friends, their attitudes towards sharing resources such as selotape and shampoo and the way they hog hall phones with no regard for others all demonstrate the place of their “self”.

Secondly, there is the delusion. Their understanding of everything is drastically limited by their mistaken beliefs and impressions and this manifests in their poor comprehension of their legal situation, their lack of understanding of their options and, of course, their general attitudes and opinions.

Many of the guys in here are “clever” but without the ability to process information to reach an appropriate understanding of reality they inevitably act unwisely. It’s worth also saying that many of them are really not clever at all so that added to their delusion does not make for a good combination.

Prison stories are sometimes totally ridiculous and I have no idea why people make them up but I have a “plausibility filter” – any story that I hear, I have to ask myself “is it plausible? The problem is that so many people do not have that filter.

Someone told me the other day that if your cell mate kills themselves then you get released immediately on compassionate grounds! Obviously a preposterous story that is implausible. Another time, I heard that the previous week, I shoe had been found in the soup which was clearly nonsense or that a guard known as a big bully broke a prisoner’s arm because he was being cheeky… well, maybe some prison tales are plausible.

The third common thread is the inability to resist desire. Gluttony is endemic in here and although it is mainly expressed with food, I can well believe how greed caused their offending behaviour which resulted in imprisonment.

There can be so many reasons for the development of this inability but as I am not a psychologist, I don’t feel qualified to provide the answers. However, the effect is alarming. So much obesity, so many dental issues, fractured relationships and so much sexualised behaviour.

What I am able to say is that it is my opinion that unless these common threads are addressed then the desistance of offending behaviour might never be possible.

Take care.

NaN.