ANDREW TESTA FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINELockdown was hard for
Cameron. He had a child
born after he was jailed
and they have not seen
each other in months
Drinks cartons are stacked beside the TV in bodybuilder Cameron’s bare cell on F wingsocially distanced, so no hugging or
embracing is allowed, which is a particular
challenge to the small children visiting their
fathers. Staff are told to be flexible and
tolerant, but the rules are necessary to keep
prisons free from infection. Some families
choose not to bother and instead opt for
phone calls or virtual visits via video.
One of the most difficult losses of the
lockdown at Isis was the closure of the gym.
Staff organised outdoor events such as
a mini Olympics, but they were a poor
substitute for those who focus on weights
to keep themselves sane and in shape.
When the gym finally reopened, it had
reduced areas and taped-out zones for
social distancing, and more time had to be
set aside for cleaning and hygiene.
The reopening was a happy day for many,
including Cameron, a young man in his
mid-twenties who is serving a ten-year
sentence for a firearms offence. He is
approaching the end of five years in prison
before being released on licence. We meet
on the landing of F wing and he shows me
to his unadorned cell — he doesn’t like to
put up anything personal on the walls, he
says. There’s a Freeview TV and a table piled
high with cartons of milk and protein
drinks. He’s a bodybuilder with a muscular
physique who works as a gym orderly.
Believe it or not, he says, he was skinny
before he came into prison.
Although our conversation is quite
spontaneous and he has not been selected
to talk to me, he gives a positive account of
the regime at Isis. But lockdown was hard,
he says. He had a child born after he was
locked up and they have not seen each
other in months. Although his “baby mum”,
as he calls her, is now able to visit, she does
not bring the child.
Isis has a prisoner council that met
regularly during the lockdown and I talk
to some of the wing reps. They each applied
for and were appointed to the role after
attending interviews — a new experience
for some. Nasir tells me how his wing
became frustrated at the rumours and
misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
The worst example was the government’s
early release scheme for prisoners, which
failed to result in many releases.
“At one stage most of my wing thought
they were coming out early,” he says. The
scheme had offered the prospect of up to
4,000 early releases to help control the
spread of the virus. So far only 316 prisoners
have been let out, plus two who were sent
home in error and had to be recalled.
Across all the prisons there has also
been frustration that the regimes have
struggled to respond quickly to changing
government rules. In its strategy for lifting
restrictions safely the prison service set out
a series of stages: Lockdown (with a
significant number of infections), Restrict
(infection levels under control), Reduce (no
infections present or spread is contained at
very low levels) and Prepare (no infections).
Each prison can move through the phases
with central permission.
Nasir is at Isis serving a second term of
imprisonment for drugs. He is 25 andthe lockdown regime required big
adjustments, he tells me. You could only
shower on alternate days and there was
a lot of confusion about what was going
on. But there was also recognition that
everyone was in the same boat, more or
less, and prison staff did their best to
communicate, even though a lot of the
time they were in the dark too.
Prisoners were not provided with masks
or any other PPE. They felt like sitting ducks
at first and feared for their families and for
themselves that staff would bring the virus
into prison. But after a while they began to
get used to living with the fear.
“We were, like, ‘What virus?’ ” he says n
The names of all prisoners have been changed18 • The Sunday Times Magazine