In 6.1 I explore the potential ambivalence of the prison reception procedure and chaplains’ part in it. The procedure is not uniform across the system and may acquire different layers according to the category of the prison. Local prisons experience high, unpredictable reception rates while longer stay prisons tend to experience lower, more predictable admissions. George, chaplain in a category A maximum security establishment where men arrive from other prisons, speaks of a protracted process which reflects the
relatively slow churn of inmates but also emphasises the chaplain’s embedding in the institutional reception sequence:
Everyone has an induction booklet; there is (sic)about 18 modules that they need to have signed off and people can’t move on from induction until they have been signed off on all 18, of which one of them is chaplaincy……. So we are very much a part of the…… part of the prison regime really.
By contrast, chaplains in category B local prisons speak of the importance of reception but also of the pressure of numbers; Alexandra is representative:
Realistically, you are only going to be able to say, “Hello,” and talk to them briefly but when we see them we give them our leaflet, check that they are alright, check that their relatives know that they are here and record all that, you know we record who we have seen.
She expands upon the significance of chaplains’ statutory reception visits for those “who haven’t been in prison before perhaps and who are absolutely distraught, they really don’t know what to do. And in a sense they are not going to show anybody else that but actually the chaplain is safe.” Her perspective is one in which the secular office with its attendant duties appears to intertwine with a humane concern for welfare and possibly life itself, a recognition of urgently individual need and distress which is
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implicitly at odds with the deprivation and degradation involved in entry into prison. Unlike other reception staff, her reach extends beyond the prison wall to include the prisoner’s family. The humanitarian and the institutional functions are fused in the recording of pastoral data on the computerised system. A further layer of formal prisonization occurs in the giving of the chaplaincy leaflet, detailing chaplaincy staff, faith activities and, in several cases, information about how to access the prison visitor scheme, which frequently falls within the purview of a chaplain. Taken together, these elements seem simultaneously to address the institutional need for assessment and diagnosis as well as the individual’s need for reassurance and stabilization. The observation that “the chaplain is safe” acquires an ironic edge insofar that she will not tell other prisoners, who might try to capitalise upon personal information, but will make some information available in the total administrative data pool (Scott 2011, 90).
Confidentiality is a live issue for chaplains but did not arise during research interviews except for Ben’s comment that people “know that we keep confidences” but “prisoners know that there are boundaries.” The
boundaries concern possible harm to self or others, planned disruption and certain categories of offence.
Unforeseen problems arise as a result of unexpected imprisonment, such as “who’s looking after the kids?” (Esther) or “the dog’s locked in the flat” (Jeanette). Tom had recently transferred from a category B local to a category C long stay prison.
I think that a lot of the concerns in my previous place were
understandably about the trial, (being) separated from family, you know, work, housing, all those sorts of issues which are the immediate concerns of somebody coming straight off the streets, through the courts into the prison. Here they seem to be a little bit more petty in the fact that they’re important to people here, “My canteen’s not come, I can’t get a light bulb, I can’t lock the budgie cage.” The visit side is not so important because a lot of people lost contact with families and friends and they don’t get any visitors.
Tom’s comparison exemplifies the divergence of practice within a common statutory activity, determined by the nature of the institution and the extent
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to which the prisoner has become subsumed by the carceral system (“important to people here….. lost contact”). Receptions then assume importance at different levels of intensity while remaining an unpredictable proportion of the day’s work; Esther remarked that “there were 17 on Saturday morning. We had three this morning and 5 yesterday but 12 the day before. Now in term of big prisons that may not be very many but if there’s only one of you on it can be quite a lot to chase up.” It is one of the variables that can necessitate a daily rewriting of the chaplain’s timetable within the invariable parameters of the institutional schedule. One of the “big prisons” to which she refers has taken on the task of data gathering for other departments as well as chaplaincy so that its contribution to the total institutional data is a central component and the time is budgeted for. The Anglican chaplain, Alf, observes that it takes the data gatherer into the “grubby minutiae” of prisoners’ lives as a first step to attempting to face them. He remarks upon their courtesy and says, “I always thank them for being so courteous,” suggesting a level of mutual respect. The ethical basis for this investigative data gathering remains ambiguous: is the chaplain operating as a bureaucrat or as a concerned minister?
“Doing the routine stuff which is the bread and butter of all chaplaincies” (Colin) is unavoidable, unpredictable, various, and locates the chaplain somewhere between confidant(e) and informer, though prisoners seem to know this and, as Roger and Alexandra imply in a different context, exercise decision about who rather than what they will tell.
Reference to the segregation unit statutory visit occurs throughout the data. Visiting the prison hospital did not occur in any interview. I did not ask directly about it, possibly a reflection of my own unease in hospital settings, although I accompanied one chaplain (Dennis) on such a visit. On the other hand, three chaplains used the metaphor of an A & E ward for chaplaincy in local prisons.
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