Prisons wot I know

At the start of AA100, I had three students in Lewes prison.



They got on very well together, and it was fun doing a proper group tutorial, which they all participated in intelligently and enthusiastically. They also all, in their individual ways, did well on the course. They get decent marks on assignments; they have plans for continuing. One is thinking of doing philosophy, one philosophy or art history,a nd one art history or criminology.

My group broke up though when one was transferred to Parkhurst, and then a fortnight later another was transferred to Ford. It happens, apparently, on "transfer Tuesday" and the prisoner is given little or no notice, but is just told to tidy up their belongings and get in the van. It must be incredibly disruptive, but both students survived the experience, and have continued with their assignments. I went to visit today. I visited Ford first.



It's an open prison. They do try to remind the staff that there is some security. This sign is in the car park, quite a way from the prison entrance.



Then I went to Parkhurst, being rained on all the way. The ferry over was grim.



And Parkhurst is frightening. Huge horrible concrete walls with no relief. Inside, pictures of the weapons found in various prisoners' cells.



But my prisoner was doing OK, and we discussed his ECA, which he had already started planning, and had some good ideas about.

And the ferry back was much nicer - we even saw some sunshine.

Jack Straw gets knickers in twist

According to the BBC, Jack Straw has personally intervened to order the cancellation of comedy classes at Whitemoor prison. Apparently they are "totally unacceptable".

He says, correctly, "Prisons should be places of punishment and reform, and providing educational, training and constructive pursuits is an essential part of this."

And then he goes on: "But the types of courses available, and the manner in which they are delivered must be appropriate in every prison.... There is a crucial test: can the recreational, social and educational classes paid for out of taxpayers' money (or otherwise) be justified to the community?"

Prison officials will be reminded, we're told, of the need for the courses taken by prisoners to pass the test of public acceptability. Now, maybe there is an issue about public understanding, as exemplified by the Daily Mail's (comic) attempt to capitalise on the issue: "Jail forced to scrap comedy course for Al Qaeda terrorist" - yes, one of the beneficiaries would have been Zia Ul Haq who plotted bomb attacks on London. What would we rather have him doing, I wonder, sulking in his cell thinking of more ways to blow strangers up, or suddenly discovering he has a talent for making jokes, and another way to make people take notice of him. The organisers' justification for the classes is that they boost teamwork and communication skills, and again Zia Ul Haq's intended targets might just benefit from him discovering that working *with* people is a lot more fun than working against them. You never know, he might even discover a truer Islam. Though that of course would be of no concern to the Daily Mail. Or, by extension, to Jack Straw, whose decision is surely not based on any criterion other than keeping not too far left of the Mail. In that he is destined to fail, as the Mail will foam with outrage if a prisoner gets so much as a pencil to write his name with.

If comedy is not a fit subject for prisoners to study, then nothing is. Comedy is not just about pratfalls and belly laughs. It's about timing and teamwork and it's about understanding the times we live in. Comedians who don't mine a seam of the society they live in don't get very far. Comedy twins with tragedy in its observation of the human race in all its glories and its perversities, and it can at its best get deep into the human soul. Which is by common consent the best episode of Blackadder? It's Goodbyeee..., the one where they die. And that is no isolated episode. It stands in a long tradition of acute observation by gentle piss taking. There was a cartoonist of the First World War, Bruce Bairnsfather, whose work was mistrusted by the powers that be at first but his popularity with the troops saw to it that he kept going. His best known cartoon is "If you knows of a better 'ole, go to it", but my favourite is one I can't find a reproduction of. A British soldier sits at a table in the open air. Behind him is the ruin of a farmhouse, around him are blasted trees, a shattered well, a smashed wagon and dead animals. Smoke rises from broken walls. He is writing a letter. "Dear Mum, We are staying at a farm...".

Comedy pierces the balloon, shatters the illusions of the egomaniac and the violent. What better way is there for Zia Ul Haq to learn an alternative to the nihilism that's been injected into his soul? But, if we were to allow that, we'd have to acknowledge that people can change, and in Daily Mail territory that is the ultimate sin.