My diary of prison education in the coronavirus crisis

Monday

I arrive at work. I look up at the gates that are designed not only to keep prisoners banged up but also to keep the public out. I’m not really sure what the day will bring but hoping I stay infection-free so I don’t have to go on sick leave. Can you imagine? Sick pay of £94 a week is not going to pay the bills. I must be very careful to wash my hands… 

I take out my keys and unlock the cold metal gates to the education department. I then relock them once I’m inside, giving them a hefty shake to ensure they are locked. Suddenly,  my hands feel infected, and I run to wash them but… no soap. 

I go into the office and log on to the computer. My mind starts closing in, looking at the dirty keyboard. I go to disinfect it but, surprise surprise, there are no cleaning products. With horror, I realise what I’m holding: a pen the learners use. 

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I stop and look at the surroundings. We’ve always had an issue with rats here but now I see invisible germs spreading like a tidal wave throughout the whole building. The classrooms already have a putrid smell: body odour mixed with fear and anxiety.

I know others feel the same. Miss B is struggling through her first panic attack. I offer her a glass of water – you would think I had just offered her the plague. Anyhow, Miss B is told that fear is not an illness, so she’s sent home on unpaid leave.

Then, we are told that the education provision has just been made voluntary so that we can follow government guidelines and self-distance ourselves from learners. But guess what? We end up with more learners than usual, and I have 10 of them in my very small classroom. No social distancing here: we are so close that I can feel the spittle on my face when a learner shouts at me because the men’s toilet has no soap.

We read in the evidence reported that prisons are “Petri dishes for Covid-19”. Again, we raise concerns. This time, management tell us that teachers are key workers. We need to keep working to get funding – otherwise (veiled threat) who knows if we will still have a job at the end of this?

Tuesday

I arrive at the gate as usual, making sure I stand two metres away from the officer in front. The medic takes my temperature and says I’m not too hot to teach. My face gives away what I’m thinking and he assures me not to worry – apparently the prison has been placed into lockdown and we’ll all get sent home.

By 8am, I’m in a meeting with all the other staff, carefully avoiding anyone with red eyes or sweaty skin. We wait for the manager to send us home, but no…we have to remain at work until 4.30pm. Apparently, a prison shutdown does not mean that we cannot be at work. Teachers start to panic: prison shutdowns usually make the prisoners agitated. Surely we will be in the way of officers doing their job?

At 4.30pm we are called into another meeting. We are being sent home to work until further notice.

Wednesday

I awake early and duly set a plan of how I will occupy myself for eight hours: lesson plans, schemes of work, starter activities.

At lunchtime, I receive a call to say we are to offer a skeleton service to the prison, and that I am expected back on site the following day. The news today is reporting that there are 19 inmates infected across 10 different prisons. Staff are upset we have not been given this information directly. Instead we read about it in tabloids. One inmate passed away today, and fear is spreading faster than the virus.

Thursday

I arrive at work, feeling apprehensive, but again I pass the temperature test and follow the officers through the heavy metal gates. I set up the desks and open emails before a meeting at 10 with the prison’s head of learning and skills.

When she walks into the meeting, I am instantly still. She looks like hell and tells me that she’s been helping around the prison wherever she could because officers are dropping like flies. She doesn’t want me to deliver the accredited course: she just wants something, anything, that will help keep prisoners busy. She says that three officers were assaulted yesterday on their first day in the job and that alarm bells were going off constantly in the main building.

As I walk out of the gates and across the car park at the end of the day, my heart goes out to all those who remain behind the gate. I hope they make it through another day. 

The writer is a prison educator in England