Sheppey has the biggest concentration of prisoners in Britain, but little is known about what goes on behind those closed doors. This week, in the third in our series of regular features on HMP Swaleside, reporter Emma Grove speaks to prison officer Louise Crutcher to get her Inside Story...

Prison officer Louise Crutcher has worked at HMP Swaleside for almost two years.

She is a case supervisor based in the offender management unit and as well as dealing with inmates day to day, is responsible for behind-the-scenes issues such as sentence and parole hearings.

She said she looks after about 60 prisoners and deals with their questions or problems regularly.

Louise hadn’t always wanted to be a prison officer and says it’s not the sort of job you wander round the playground dreaming about doing.

The 26-year-old joined the service after coming across a recruitment drive in a shopping centre.

When she first started, she didn’t have any preconceptions and said although it was daunting because it was new, nothing really shocked or surprised her.

The toughest thing about the job, she says, is some of the sights you see which if you witnessed in the outside world would be very traumatic.

“You see people getting hurt. It doesn’t matter whether it’s staff or prisoners – it’s not nice to see.

“I don’t think it’s about being physically tough but you need to be mentally strong without a doubt [to do the job].

“If you are easily stressed, worried or panicked, it’s not the right job for you,” she said.

Some of things prison officers witness include self-harm incidents, suicides, assaults on staff and other prisoners and attacks on budgies because the prisoners can keep caged birds.

Louise also said she witnesses arguments between prisoners which can turn very violent, very quickly.

She added: “It can be a very highly charged small area to be in. You become desensitised to it in a way because they are things that happen in your line of work.”

Another thing Louise has noticed since becoming a prison officer is not just about their treatment by inmates, but how they are perceived by the public.

Often she says the comments about how prisoners have everything they want and have a lovely life are directed at them.

She said: “I don’t know why prison officers are disliked by the general public – we tend to be seen as another uniform and people forget we are not responsible for what’s put in place.

“There seems to be a real stigma that prison officers are these really hard-nosed people that throw their weight around but it’s not run like that.

“You can’t run it through a power trip or by giving them everything they want – it works on a mutual respect.”

Although Louise said none of the prisoners would ever be her friends and you can’t do the job and become emotionally involved, she said it is important to have a good rapport with them.

Having a friendly atmosphere helps the security of the prison because often officers will be tipped off when bad things are about to happen.

Occasionally she said there can be a scary situation, but she said it’s not so much about the training kicking in but the trust she has in her colleagues.

She doesn’t see herself as brave, but says in the past she has seen some prison staff who have put their lives on the line to save either a prisoner or member of staff.

She said: “Even when you are on your own, you know there are people on their way that will do anything they have to do to help you.”

Louise believes in the past it may have been different for female prison officers but now it doesn’t make a difference and although sometimes she gets rude comments, she says it stops as long as it’s dealt with quickly.

But the other side to this is that where in the past inmates would never assault a female prison officer, that has now changed, too.

In the future Louise would like to experience working in a women’s prison and is also interested in going into dog-handling.

She added: “People say to me 'I couldn’t do that job’ and sometimes I don’t really know how I do it.

“You can’t get through this job without having a sense of humour.

“I definitely get satisfaction from the job – seeing the progression that people make.

“You do get a lot of thanks from prisoners and we are fortunate here that we are thanked by management and that makes it all worthwhile.”

Governor's view:

HMP Swaleside governor Jim Bourke says that although every member of staff is valuable, he feels that the prison officers are the key people.

He said: “They are always here. They are here at night, at the weekends, in the evenings.

“They are the people who the prisoners are woken up by and they are there when a visit goes bad or a fight takes place.

“Confidence, competence and consistency is what we aim to have in our prison officers.

“That’s not to say everybody doesn’t have a totally valuable job but the fundamental is somebody is locked behind a door and they require a prison officer to unlock them, and if you get that right everything else follows.

“Prison officers are asked to use common sense and they have authority which they are asked to reinforce in the right way, without leading to confrontation.”

Jim said on an average wing there are about eight uniformed staff looking

after between 120 and 178 prisoners.

He added: “We are not armed, nor do we have super strength.

“We manage it because the prisoners recognise they are better off with us in charge than them in charge.

“The only alternative is to let chaos take place and keep control in a watch-tower with a gun, but that’s not what we want in a civilised society.”