I’ve been asked many times why I became a prison officer. People don’t often ask me why I quit. But the reasons are very similar. I was 22 years old when I joined the Prison Service, a young woman starting at a high security men’s prison in Cambridgeshire. I can still remember how nervous I felt, how shiny my unworn boots looked, how heavy those keys felt in my pocket.
I was at a strange point in my life. I’d dropped out of university a few years before, and had bounced from job to job looking for something that felt meaningful. I wanted to do something that had real impact. I wanted to make a difference.
That may sound idealistic, or even foolish, but incredible work goes on in our prisons every day and I was soon struck by the courage and optimism of the people I worked alongside. In among the inevitable challenges of prison work, there was hope, camaraderie and humour. I found everything I was looking for in my role. And much more besides.
In a society in which everyone is fixated on their screens, I saw the value of an environment where that isn’t possible. Mobile phones aren’t permitted in prison. Not for staff, and certainly not for prisoners. Instead, we talked. I talked with the prisoners about justice, education, loyalty. We debated, agreed, and of course, argued. But these were men in for the long haul, serving sentences often exceeding 30 years, and they had plenty of time to chat. I learned the power of that, too. The power of proper unfiltered conversation, of awkward silences, of laughter and sadness and everything in between. Real life. Being fully present in a place that demanded nothing less.
The officers I worked with taught me about emotional intelligence, when to speak and when to listen, how to read a room and recognise subtle shifts in atmosphere that signalled a problem. And in those moments, I saw the speed with which they acted. The problems they solved before they had a chance to explode. The problems that mirrored life on our streets. Gangs, knife crime, drugs. In this most secretive of worlds, I learned more about society than anything in my life up to that point had taught me.
I saw the ugliness of prison in sharp clarity. Particularly when I transferred to a rat-infested inner London jail, where the prisoners stuffed Brillo pads into the jagged holes in cell windows in a desperate attempt to keep the rain out. Budget cuts and an early retirement scheme drained the prison of crucial resources and even more crucially, the experience of long-term staff. As staffing dropped, violence soared, along with riots, self-harm, suicides and murders. This went far past the point of what you might realistically expect to encounter in prison.
Things intensified as the years went on. And yet, because I’d always believed in the work I did, all of this seemed, if not surmountable, then at least possible to somehow tolerate. If you get this job right, it is a huge privilege. The impact and influence a prison officer can have is profound. But I found myself becoming increasingly disillusioned with what I was doing.
I heard myself shouting far more than I talked, and found myself running to incidents far more than I prevented them. I saw prisoners released on a Friday coming back in the following Monday, young men finishing a stint for GBH only to return a few months later charged with murder; and some of the finest officers I knew resigning months before retirement because none of this felt worth it any more. Because the toll was too heavy. Because what psychologists refer to as moral injury, a kind of violence of the conscience, is only tolerable if there’s something in place to mitigate it. Something to anchor you to that sense of purpose that brought you there in the first place.
After almost 10 years in the Prison Service, I quit. The job felt both stagnant and overwhelmingly stressful, and the gravity of some of the things I was seeing weighed heavily on my mind. I no longer felt fulfilled. I’d lost my anchor. I believe that prison should be a place where people can find their potential, both staff and prisoners. It shouldn’t be the thing that limits it.
Through writing about my experiences, I’ve found a way to capture the stories that are so important to me and shine a light on what it is to live and work behind bars.
I still hope to make a difference. Just without that set of keys in my pocket.
Alex South was a prison officer for 10 years, working at men’s prisons around the country, and is now the author of Behind These Doors
