Comments on The Pensive Quill: Prison Brutality

Screws would be perhaps the most reactionary arm o...

2009-11-11T19:04:54.660Z

Screws would be perhaps the most reactionary arm of the state's security forces I have had the misfortune to come across. The UDR/RIR are well placed in that league but the N.I.P.S would clinch it due to their capacity for 24/7 xenophobic performances displayed towards a literally captive audience.

I once saw that large moustached screw who seems to have a penchant for appearing in the media (usually in documentaries lamenting the awful time his co-workers had to endure while they got paid triple-time for beating prisoners) drunkenly scream anti-immigration obscenities into the face of a young female Roma Big Issue seller outside the old GPO in Belfast. Now that little incident happened at one of the busiest times of the day in central Belfast with potentially scores of witnesses and it made me rightly suspect that he would be less restrained with someone who had offended against his herrenvolk sensibilities in the totalitarian environment of Maghaberry's boards with perhaps a few more subsidised drinks in him?

Small wonder that the BNP recruits heavily within the prison service and with a few exceptions, it has been my experience that the average screw has a worldview to the right of wild Willie Frazer. I suspect that screws are conditioned to hate prisoners for being the cause of their dullard lives. Seriously, how many kids have ever said they want to be a prison officer when they grow up?

Interested, the first prison officer killed was in...

2009-07-15T22:21:41.219+01:00

Interested, the first prison officer killed was in 1976 after political status was withdrawn but before the blanket protest and real brutality began. There had been a former prison officer shot dead in 1974. The campaign in earnest against them began after the beginning of the blanket protest and ended prior to the hunger strikes. There were four killed after the hunger strikes, two of whom were central to brutality in the H Blocks, one by mistake or because he was an easy target and another because he was trying to introduce a hard line post-the escape. If the prison staff were viewed as part of the British war machine without distinction, why were they not targeted with more consistency? When the IRA in South Armagh captured 5 screws along with one RUC member, Louis Robinson, why were the screws released and he shot dead? You raise a good point if builders could be targeted why not prison staff. But the evidence does not lend itself to any other conclusion. I think much of it had to do with the working relationship that had to be established between prisoners and prison staff.

AM your answer as to whether the prison warders we...

2009-07-13T23:32:40.982+01:00

AM your answer as to whether the prison warders were Legitimate Targets regardless of the illtreatment they handed out is of great interest to me, what your post tells me is that if they the warders hadn't meted out this brutality they would never have been killed, sorry but this is not what the PIRA told us for years, anyone who worked for or helped the Brits was a "Legitimate Target". Am I now to believe that the prison warders were not part of the Brit war machine. Was the treatment handed out so cruely not a British government directive so therefor making the Screws targets . The people who built the Blocks were targets why would the the people who ran them be different ?

Interested, why would prison staff have been targe...

2009-07-12T21:33:18.190+01:00

Interested, why would prison staff have been targets regardless of what happened within the jail? There really were only 4 years of the conflict where they were targeted in a consistent manner. The first in 1976, the last in 1980. After that 4 were killed, two of whom were the most violent screws in the H-Blocks who would certainly not have been killed were it not for their role during the protest.

While I don't bang a drum demanding an apology - the issue only came up in conversation - I don't see how it would be a sixth demand. It is a stand alone issue where prison staff heavily involved in criminal assaults on prisoners should have their role acknowledged, albeit in a way they would never approve.

Screws have long used violence against prisoners. It was frequently dished out as a control mechanism outside the blanket protest. Young Prisoners known as YPs were particularly susceptible to screw assault and those in borstal.

I have spoken to many screws since it all including some who were on the blanket wings; one of the ones I liked most was in charge of our wing from 1978-1980. In civilian life on the outside they can be as decent and unassuming as many other people.

Kate, prison staff brutality was initially an atte...

2009-07-12T15:02:45.245+01:00

Kate, prison staff brutality was initially an attempt to coerce prisoners into wearing the prison uniform. They did not stop prisoners coming out of cells at first but tried to get them to parade naked when going for meals etc. The two main charged against prisoners made routinely were refusing to wear gear and refusing to work.

In essence they could have ran their regime without knocking lumps out of prisoners whether prisoners obeyed rules or not.

No, all the dead screws were not guilty of brutality. Many carried the can for the activity of their colleagues in the H-Blocks.

People who beat are never fall guys. The 'only taking orders' has long carried no weight.

I read this post with great interest thinking what...

2009-07-11T20:19:45.687+01:00

I read this post with great interest thinking what cruelty was being dished out to prisoners whom were imprisoned in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh at the the time of the "Blanket/Dirty protest. But an apology no I dont think now or ever will the British give one , this in my opinion would be like a 6th demand . I believe the post should inform us that there was a vast difference between those prisoners on protest and prisoners jailed for other offences. As members of the IRA they would have been fully aware that the treatment they recieved would have been well known before they had even being allowed into such an organisation, long jail sentences and possibly death was the words that they all heard. Prison Officers would have been Legitimate Targets regardless of what happened within the jails.
This treatment was a vehicle used by the British against the IRA just the same as "shoot to kill" and both will never be admitted. Books have been written by both prisoners and warders maybe a meeting of heads and hearts between both would make a very interesting read.

2009-07-11T11:24:17.392+01:00

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