[Previous entry: "No Room at the Inn (23-25 Dec)"] [Next entry: "New Year in Jail"]
Highs and Lows (26-30 Dec)
Monday being a 'holiday' means the cons in the dorm have nothing to do. Everyone seems to be living on top of each other, conditions are cramped. Even the unpopular 'jail' tea bags are running out and we have no milk or sugar. I seen a con using a sachet of jam in his tea to sweeten it but most just do without.
It was inevitable a fight would break out and it was inevitable the weak would be targetted. A young con, who looked as if he was just out of young offenders, came in with a bad attitude. He was going to do this and he was going to do him. One night he put toothpaste on a guys sheets he didn't like because the guy was stout. The y/o got a supply of pills from the nurse and split them with a young friend. They both retired to their respective bunks and slept for the rest of the day and through till the next morning. The y/o was on a heavy dose of methadone along with a few other junkies in the billes and many more in the jail. When the call came over the tannoy for methadone the y/o was still fast asleep and another con, who must have been desperate for a hit went down and took his place in the queue. Of course someone told the y/o he was missing his dose and when he declared himself to the nurse the con was caught red-handed and put in the digger (punishment cell).
Although it seems plain that this was no fault on the y/o the incident causes some ill feeling towards him as the desperate con was 'well liked'. Later that evening a con told the y/o to get away from him as he was 'gouching' too close to him and "I'm rattling and canny get a gouch!" "fuck off and gouch somewhere else ya prick!" I could see the con was uptight and it did look as if he was indeed' rattling.' I don't think he had any sort of medication sorted out yet. Minutes later the con steps into the toilet and shouts on the y/o "C'mere you, have you been putting teabags down this toilet again?"
The young boy walks into the toilet to protest his innocence but he never got a chance. By the sounds of things the con smacks as soon as he walks in and after that sounds like a few digs - it is over in seconds. The con walks out looking pleased with himself and moments later the y/o follows and goes over to his bunk. His face is puffed slightly but there is no blood. He lies down on his bed and sobs quietly.
On Wednesday we are allocated jobs. When my turn comes I am took into an office and a guard informs me I can have a job in the textile shed or the scrap shed. I choose textiles as I worked in the scrap last time and it's a dirty job breaking up old cables separating the lead from copper.
The Home Office, or whoever it is that decides, has decreed that each prisoner should be given an allowance of approximately five pounds per week. This money is used to cover the cost of phone calls to families, friends, legal reps etc. ...toiletries, writing materials, and sundries. Prisoners are mostly offered the opportunity to work to earn extra money. Apart from passmen duties which are guys who are allocated parts of the prison to clean, and cooks, the prisoners at Low Moss work in the work-sheds. If you work in the sheds your 'wages' rise from the five pounds allocated to just over eight pounds so basically you work all week for just about three pounds.
Of course eight pounds a week is not enough money for a prisoner to get by, the goods sold in the prison shop are exactly the same as your local store, so prisoners are allowed to use up to fifteen pounds of their own money as well as the eight pounds earned giving your average con up to £23 per week. The prisoners personal cash is called PPC and not all prisoners have it.
Next Day after breakfast we report to the textile shed for work. There must be around sixty cons milling about and in the middle are two rows of what looks like industrial sewing machines. At the top of the shed is a raised bench with a couple of guards sitting. I report to the guard and tell him I am a 'new start' and he asks me if I can work a sewing machine.
I remember as a boy playing with my mothers old 'Singer' in the front room. I tell him I can't. he tells me I can learn how to work a machine or I can sit about doing nothing all day for six months. "It's up to you." I say "Okay then" and go and sit with the other cons. Nobody seems to be doing anything.
The shoplifter has an idea! He sees a con sweeping up round the shed and asks him if there are any other 'shed passmen' jobs going? The con tells him there was another guy helping who was liberated recently. The shoplifter asks the guard if he can have the other passman job. The guard replies he can have the job if he wants and can start straight away. He comes back over to us, brush in hand. I ask him why he wants to do that? He replies "If I can walk around sweeping up all day I can collect the dog ends on the floor and I won't have to buy tobacco.
"I have no PPC and needs must."
Minutes later a guard shouts out a list of names, mine included, and tells us to go back to our billets as there is not enough work. We are taken back to the billet leaving the shoplifter there, sweeping up.
2 comments >
You can always apply to be transported to Australia as a convict.
SOME OLD NEWS FROM PHILIP RUDDOCK.He has no feeling or empathy for anyone except his stamp collection.
PHILIP RUDDOCK is now Australia's Attorney General.Philip Ruddock is also known as the "Walking Cadaver."
AUSTRALIA HAS AN OVERSEAS SPOUSE QUOTA FIXED AT 30,000 A YEAR
The following is an article from the "Sydney Morning Herald"September, 17th, 1996.
"MIGRANT LAW MAY SEPARATE MARRIED COUPLES
The Government will cap and kill applications by Australians to bring their overseas spouses into Australia a move which would see long-term separations of married couples unless the Opposition allows through the Senate tough new measures to curb applications.
The Minister for Immigration, Mr Ruddock,said the draconian move,allowable under present law but never used in relation to spouses, would help curb huge increases in applications for spouses, some of which were shams, but others 'a fraud on Australians'.
Under present practise,applications for offshore spouses to come are allowed regardless of the quota set.Mr Ruddock wants to enforce his quota by a cap and queue regulation, making applicants after the qouta is reached to wait, possibly for months, until heading the queue for next years intake.
But in the face of Labor opposition in the Senate, he threatened to use his general cap and kill power to terminate applications made post-qouta.This would force Australians to apply again next year on equal terms with next year's applicants, causing indefinite separations.
Mr Ruddock's threat, which contradicts the Coalition's strong pro-family rhetoric but is part of a clampdown on migration numbers,was denounced by Labor's immigration spokeman, Mr Duncan Kerr, as social engineering.
The Opposition last week knocked off in the Senate one of several changes to regulations to tighten elegibility for 'preferential family' migration,available to spouses and aged parents.Mr Kerr told the Herald Labor would also disallow Mr Ruddock's 'cap and queue' regulation.
Mr Ruddock told the Herald that if people who had already applied were allowed in,the progam would overstep this year's 36,700 quota by about 13,000.Rather than allow an overshoot, he would use his general power under current law to cap and kill,unless Labor stopped trying to micro-manage his immigration program by disallowing regulations in the Senate.
Mr Kerr said that 'Australians have always exercised their own choice on who they'll marry,and I don't believe any red-blooded Australian will allow the Government to force couples to queue up to live together.Now he's saying if he can't queue them he'll cut them off.
'If you meet and marry in January,thats OK,but if you're a December bride or groom you mightn't be able to get your spouse in for years.'
Mr Ruddock said he did not regard cap and terminate as the best outcome, but if it is necessary I will be applying it.
He said Labor had maintained a steady 37,000 quota for four years,before lifting it last year to 50,000.Many people had reported partners 'walking out the door as soon as they arrive in Australia.' 'The fraud is being occasioned on Australians by people seeking to migrate,' he said.
Mr Kerr blamed the increase on the wash-up of the Tiananmen Square massacre,under which Labor granted 40,000 Chinese people refugee status.But Mr Ruddock said there rises in applications accross the board, and the percentage increase was as great in England."
Article from the Sydney Morning Herald.August, 25th, 1997.
"PEDDLERS OF HATE MUST BE SILENCED"
"reactionary bean counters' viewed families as a burden and believed the only people who should be allowed to migrate to Australia were individuals with money.
Australia was simply lucky to get away with those old discriminations but we will not be so lucky again.The world turned on apartheid South Africa.I don't want Australia to become the new world target because racism is allowed to penetrate our political and administritive systems."
[From the outgoing head of the Ethnic Communties Council of NSW.]
JOHN HOWARD-The Lying Rodent.John Howard wants free trade but not the free movement of people.He thinks Australias biggest assets are its sheep, coal and uranium not people.He says he has the final solution to our problems "Too many people."
The Blacklist
"Philip Ruddock gazetted regulations when he was Australia's immigration minister[number S241 of 1997] to stop visitors from many countries coming to Australia and among them is Poland.[Israel is also on the list as well as the following countries-Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Fiji, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mauritius, Nauru, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Samoa, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tonga, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vietnam and Yugoslavia]."
More at
http://nowhiteaustralia.blogspot.com/
And
http://www.country-liberal-party.com/pages/Let-Them-Drown.html
And
http://www.country-liberal-party.com/pages/LetThemLand.htm
And
http://www.country-liberal-party.com/pages/Child-abuse.htm
And
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jan1999/immi-j20.shtml
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jan1999/imm2-j22.shtml
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jan1999/imm3-j26.shtml
[By blogggit on Saturday 09 September]
I found your blog facinating. Thank you. I'm being a bit coy because I work with yo's in england, as an officer. It seems you have a quieter time with the adults - and a much better place to work. Don't think my gov would be to happy with me saying that. He'll think I'm after a move - ha ha. Thanks anyway.
[By anon on Tuesday 09 May]