ANDREW TESTA FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINEFrom left: an offender at HMP Isis is given time out from his cell to decorate a Christmas tree; Valentine Erhahon, the prison’s chaplain
The prison was Covid-
free until five young
men transferred from
Wormwood Scrubs and
all tested positive
screen goes black. Full Sutton can hold 36
meetings a day at half an hour each. I hear
that in a handful of cases prisoners arrived
to find their sessions double-booked, but I
am not told of any greater problems and see
no direct evidence to match reports from
other prisons that the slots are too few and
booked up for weeks ahead.
One Full Sutton prisoner, I am told, had
seen his mother for the first time in a year
via a purple visit. She burst into tears
with pleasure and relief at seeing her son
again. And in another instance a prisoner
was able to say goodbye to his mother in
the last stages of her terminal illness.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, such small
mercies are precious for everyone,
especially prisoners.HMP ISIS London
Men’s prison and young offender
institution. Population: 536In Thamesmead, southeast London,
HMP Isis focuses on education, training
and resettlement for its population of
medium-risk, mostly local, young male
offenders. A high proportion have
committed offences relating to drugs
or violence. Nearly three-quarters of them,
when I visit, are from black or other
ethnically diverse backgrounds, and there
are two Mormons, I’m told.
The prison was Covid-free for 24 weeks,
but transfers from other prisons recently
resumed and five young men who came
across from Wormwood Scrubs all tested
positive on arrival. They had to be kept in
isolation from the rest of the prisoners,
as did the staff who dealt with them.Cheryl Hart, the prison’s head of Covid
recovery, is passionate and clear-headed
about her work and those in her charge. In
normal times the challenge is to maintain
a stable regime and a watching brief on
those offenders who are not supposed to
mix, the “keep-aparts” who might be from
rival gangs or areas. Most days, says Hart,
there would be a fight or an assault.
At the start of lockdown everyone was
put into effective segregation, which
dramatically reduced the incidents of
violence. However, it also had a negative
impact on the prison’s more useful
activities. All the education and training
and most of the work within the prison
stopped. In the first weeks of lockdown
small groups were allowed out, one group
at a time, for just half an hour, to get some
fresh air and to have a shower.
The prisoners have televisions in their
rooms and a lucky few have Xboxes. Isis is
the only one of the three prisons I visit
where every cell has a landline. During
lockdown, restrictions were relaxed to allow
prisoners to make longer and more frequent
calls to family. Prisoners could also be
contacted by outside agencies and NGOs
whose visits had been suspended. But ofcourse they were still locked up, and some
coped less well than others.
In the chaplain’s rooms at Isis two heavily
decorated Christmas trees are on proud
display, and I assume they must be there to
create some false idyll. But the Catholic
chaplain, Valentine Erhahon, tells me they
are there because one prisoner revealed to
him that the only time he had ever felt
happy in his life was when he was
decorating the Christmas tree at home.
The chaplain decided to give the young man
some regular time out decorating a tree.
Then, because Isis comprises two house
blocks and there is some rivalry between
them, the other block wanted a tree too.
I see a young man sitting hunched over
a box of decorations beside one of the trees
intent on his work and wonder if he is the
person who had found such limited
happiness in his early life.
“You can’t understand a young man and
the way they behave until you know about
their backgrounds,” Hart says. She
previously worked in the safer custody
team, which focuses on mental health. “Just
because they’re angry, it doesn’t mean they
are a violent person. It’s learnt behaviour.
It’s what they grew up with.”
There are mixed views at Isis, as
elsewhere, on the impact of the virus and
the strict regimes that were imposed during
lockdown. Reduced violence was obviously
seen as positive, but the long lock-ups were
not. Suspending social visits, likewise, was
clearly damaging to the young men and
their families, but it also meant a reduction
in contraband being smuggled in, such as
drugs like spice and cannabis.
Limited visits resumed in August, but they
are shorter and fewer and have to be16 • The Sunday Times Magazine