Swaleside Prison’s new G Wing has been officially opened by the Minister of State David Hanson and now houses some of the country’s most dangerous criminals.Acting news editor Nathan Rao reports

Hopefully most people will never get the chance to experience what life behind the bleak grey walls of Swaleside Prison is like.

And a tour of the category B prison’s new G Wing, which holds murderers, drug dealers, arsonists, and armed robbers, has put firmly out of my mind any ideas I might have had about straying from the confines of the law.

After handing over passport (requested as proof of identification), keys, and mobile phone we were led by our guide, Paul (full name withheld for security reasons), through the stone-walled corridors and iron-barred gates to the new wing.

At first glance, it is clean, warm, quiet, and not, as I had anticipated, a terrifying place. But a brief visit to one of the unoccupied cells brought home the realisation that prison is not, as labelled by some, a “holiday camp”.

Listener

G Wing, which is category C, was officially opened last Thursday to an audience of prison staff and the Island’s MP Derek Wyatt (Lab).

Over three floors it has 178 single cells, one of which is reserved for the listener – an inmate who is trained by the Samaritans to counsel prisoners who are feeling low or having difficulty adjusting to life behind bars.

The new wing was completed in September after almost a year of work.

The prison, one of a cluster of three prisons in Eastchurch, was allocated a budget of £92,000 to buy furniture, a snooker table, and clothes for the inmates, which according to wing manager Chris Parry, was not exceeded.

The wing holds prisoners classed as IPP – Indeterminate Public Protection – prisoners, inmates who are deemed still to be a danger to the public but are on a program of rehabilitation which if they follow, may entitle them to early parole.

Depending on what work, training courses, and programmes of education they choose to take up, time spent locked in a cell varies for each prisoner.

They are given education in victim awareness, alcohol awareness, arts and crafts, and even calligraphy.

A typical day would start at 8am, when prisoners go to work. They return to their cells at 11.30am.

They will have lunch in their cells which would be unlocked again at 1.45pm. After work or training in the afternoon, prisoners are locked up again at 4.20pm and after about half an hour they are allowed to take part in association or other evening activities.

Mr Parry said: “It is up to prisoners. If they choose not to go to education or employment then they spend more time locked up in their cells.”

He allowed us to have a look around one of the unoccupied cells, a space of no more than 6ft by 10ft, with bed, TV, sink, toilet, and cupboards.

Nowhere in the room are there any hooks or railings strong enough to hold the weight of a body, to kill themselves.

The taps are designed to run for a limited time so drowning is not an option either.

Mr Parry said: “There is nothing in here that someone could kill themselves with.

“We are trying to do anything we can to make the inmates responsible for their actions.”

Once out of the cell, the door was slammed shut – one of a row of doors behind which were some of the most dangerous men in the country.

Mr Parry said: “There are dangerous men in here, murderers, arsonists and bank robbers. They have moved to cat C because of their progress in rehabilitation, but we don’t forget they can be dangerous, and this is a dangerous job.”