Founded 1980
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Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


THE THINGS YOU FIND IN CUPBOARDS: A RIPOSTE.

Since John Berry has taken my name in vain in the autumn Newsletter, I am prompted to rouse myself from my post-retirement lethargy (there are those unkind enough to say that I got used to it while working) and send a response. John recounts that we never worked together though he frequently called in my Cleland House office when performing his sterling staff welfare duties. Like many other elements of the job, I believe his function has now virtually disappeared, NOMS thinking that the only staff welfare issues arising these days are post-incident. John has many qualities, principal among them being that he is a fellow Glossopian and, at the time, the only other Governor colleague to share that privilege. Trevor Gadd nearly counted since, though not born there, he had a lovely little cottage within borough boundaries at the foot of the Snake Pass. Another with such an advantage of birth, though not a
Governor, is NOMS main grade civil servant, Steve Gorman, last heard of addressing a criminal justice
conference in Barcelona a couple of years ago under the aegis of the EU, something else likely to disappear in our present bewildering political muddle.

But to the point of this piece: John found an aged example of my scribblings in a Justice of the Peace magazine tucked away in a courtroom cupboard. I wrote a lot for Justice of the Peace of old and I guess most of my articles ended up in cupboards rather than being read. This reminded John of my work redrafting The Prison Rules and Young Offender Institution Rules of 1999. Although I managed that exercise, my job was actually to be the intermediary between the various policyholders and other stakeholders (Boards of Visitors, unions, special interest groups etc.) and the lawyers who would do the drafting.

Sometimes the recommendations reaching me would conflict with others and resolving this was time- consuming and frustrating. Never mind the statutory convention that regulations are drafted in the masculine, trying to explain to some that ‘he embraces she’ wouldn’t wash with many even then. Reordering was necessary as some rules disappeared and others were adopted hence, to John’s and others’ annoyance, rule 43 became rule 45. Segregation was still lawful but, not surprisingly, it had to be under the correct rule.

I say ‘not surprisingly’ but it did catch a number of establishments by surprise. The most vehement criticism came from the Association of Members of Boards of Visitors. My only defence (m’lud) was to remind AMBOV that they had been apprised of this in correspondence many months previously and that governors had had at least a month’s notice by way of a Prison Service Order. But who had time to read yet more bumf from HQ when they had nicks to run?

My proudest personal achievement was when the Board accepted the abolition of the former rule 47(21). This resulted from a two-pronged exercise, partly from an academic study by criminologist friend Nancy Loucks and my own survey, written up in the Howard Journal in 1995. To remind readers, this had it that
‘A prisoner is guilty of an offence against discipline if he … in any way offends against good order and
discipline.’ Try getting out of that. The story goes that, after the Board meeting Tony Pearson remarked
that ‘Quinn will be dancing around the corridors now’ to which, if anyone remembers my fine physique, Richard Tilt is said to have replied ‘Quinn doesn’t dance – he lumbers’.

I hardly write these days: the odd contribution to The Guardian or to Private Eye which probably, quite rightly, end up in cupboards too. Perhaps in many years’ time, some old Glossopian Governor will find them there and be prompted to write to this Newsletter saying ‘Lo and behold, I found an article by Peter Quinn’. By then, I shall probably be in the great HQ in the sky and arguing that NOMS still hasn’t paid me my transfer grant.



PETER QUINN