As a former prison officer, I have opened thousands of cell doors. For almost a decade, I unlocked cells in residential blocks, healthcare units, first night centres, close supervision centres and segregation units. The twist and click of a key in the lock came to feel like background noise to me. But there are some occasions I remember more vividly than others. Sometimes the person inside wasn’t so keen on coming out.
One of those challenging incidents took place a few years ago, while I was on shift in a segregation unit in a busy London jail. Prisoners are sent to the seg for a variety of reasons – fights, assaults on staff, possession of contraband – but normally for no longer than a week or two. The seg was made up of 18 single cells spread over two storeys. I was in a team of six, all of us in full riot gear. We were moving a mentally ill prisoner who had destroyed his cell and then flooded it with sewage because he believed we were planning to implant a chip in his brain. His story is not an isolated one. In 2024, the chief inspector of prisons published a report showing that prisons are having to wait an average of 85 days to send acutely mentally unwell prisoners to secure hospitals.
