I’ve just been speaking to a load of guys at the gym. I’m sure you can build a picture in your mind: big bodybuilder, tough guys who can bench press double decker busses. Hard men, gangster enforcers, me I would never have met and should never have met. Well, we all agreed that we really miss flowers.

It’s a lovely day today and the sun is shining strongly down on this terrible place. These bars that we have around us separate us from the world and that, of course, means nature, too.

We spoke about what we’d love to be doing today. One guy said a bike ride along a riverside. Another said a walk up a hill and another said taking his kids paddling on a loch. Nobody mentioned alcohol (despite this being an old-firm day); nobody mentioned tv, nobody talked about violence or, indeed, any bahaviour that could be called anti-social.

We talked about how much we miss trees, birds, grass and sunlight. We miss rivers, forests and mountains. Yes, we miss flowers, too.

So, an idea to ponder. Why has the State decided to separate us from the natural world? What does it hope to achieve by preventing us from having a healthy appreciation of nature? If (and it is a huge “if”) prisons are supposed to be about rehabilitation, what is rehabilitative about being deprived of contact with nature?

I once asked if I could have some soil etc so that I could grow some flowers in my cell. The answer was a spat out “No!” Apparently, the Authorities know what we’d grow. I guess they meant we’d grow drugs. Well I’m no expert on these matters but I do gather that you need a lot more equipment than a plant pot, a handful of soil and a couple or marigold seeds.

I have heard that some jails down south do allow small pets like canaries and also allow the growing of plants. Why on earth not up here? I know the answer to that – because they don’t have to allow it so they don’t.

The Authorities put so much effort into not doing things that they have no capacity to do good things. 90% of the time, they refuse our requests not because we’re not allowed to do it but because they don’t have to let us do it. Read that sentence again d make sure you get my point because it’s important.

It is a pathetic way to run an organisation. “Lock ’em up for years, then kick ’em out and expect ’em to be fixed,” might as well be their cute little mission statement. The State is committing ethical crimes against, not just prisoners, but everyone in society by having such a dreadful attitude to dealing with criminal acts.

NaN.