The Devil You Know by Gwen Adshead

Author:Gwen Adshead [Dr Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571357635
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2021-06-14T22:00:00+00:00

I didn’t know where I would find Zahra when I came for our next meeting. I thought it was likely she’d still be in the HCU, but I was told on arrival that she had been sent back to the wing, signifying that staff thought her risk of suicide had decreased. I guessed that they would also have been under pressure to free up beds in the unit for some other woman who was more obviously mentally unwell. In a poorly resourced system, this is the juggling act; everyone does their best and we pray that no balls are dropped. I wasn’t under any illusion that Zahra had miraculously stopped wanting to die, but perhaps she was willing to gamble on a more positive future.

I took it as another good sign when I found she wasn’t in her cell but was at work. She had decided to return to a job she had previously held in the chaplaincy, cleaning the worship room and providing assistance to staff during services. We could have our session there.

Prisons in Britain have a chaplaincy that serves all faiths and none, supportive of all religious practices and beliefs, including paganism, agnosticism and atheism. Although self-professed atheists are the largest group in our prisons, there is still a sizeable proportion who identify as religious. Visiting priests, rabbis and imams complement the prison chaplain’s pastoral function. This is one way in which these institutions can treat prisoners as individuals and model respect for human dignity, as well as encouraging better relationships between staff and prisoners. There is also a recognition that spirituality can play a role in people becoming more pro-social and less likely to reoffend on release.

Work, education, therapy programmes, and taking diet and physical health seriously are other examples of dignifying people’s experience inside, but there is an inherent tension in the provision of these, beyond the perennial lack of funding. If they are to be seen as fair, prisons must have one rule for everyone, and sometimes options that cater to a specific subgroup are seen as biased; the same is true in secure hospitals. The focus of penal reform, which has existed for as long as modern prisons, has increasingly been on trying to prioritise rehabilitation and, with it, human dignity, but there have been many failures. I’m not naive about this and I’m also aware that in my role I may be shielded from seeing the worst of the injustices or abuses that do occur.

Each chaplaincy is unique to the institution, but they all seem to have a calm atmosphere and a relative sense of safety. I could hear the quiet rumble of conversation and the sound of bells as I approached the doors – not church bells, but those tinkling tingsha cymbals used by Buddhist monks to mark the beginning and end of meditation practice. It was quite the opposite of arriving at the HCU. Inside, a prison officer chatted with two women who were waiting to see the chaplain; nature

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.