Thursday, September 30, 2010

Confusion rules

I'm confused.

By this time, it has become a well-established medical fact that I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, not the most observant of creatures, and certainly not the brightest star in the firmament. We all know these things. Nevertheless, I'm confused.

I'll simplify it - well, it has to be simple for my overworked brain cell:

In prison, any prison as far as I am aware, there is a system in place for writing reports about cons, whether these reports are for Sentence Planning (stop laughing in the back row, this is serious.) Sentence Planning! There is only one plan - to go home. Anyway, whether it be Sentence Planning, Risk Management, Parole or any other bleedin' thing - they are all the same reports, all written by the same people, all going to the one central point (which is the Offender Management Unit - OMU) and collated. They are all the same people, all the same reports and all put together by the same person.

This is what confuses me - and maybe it is more a reflection on my poor thinking skills rather than on the incompetence of those who couldn't (apparently) organise a piss-up in a brewery. About a year ago my risk levels were all judged as low, apart from being medium to the public. Don't ask me how they work these things out, they don't know themselves - otherwise the system wouldn't be failing so spectacularly. Suddenly, about a year ago, my risk levels were changed to High Risk to the public and High Risk to a "known" adult.

At that point I got onto the Wallace about it, and Andrew wrote to the Number One Governor here several times. "Who is this 'known' adult?" was the question. "Er, um, there is no known adult," was the answer. So that was changed to low risk and the public risk was changed to medium. So, that made me a low risk to just about everyone and everything on the planet - apart from flies. (I dislike flies - they irritate me, they intrude, they annoy, they distract the attention. I don't like flies.)

So, there we were - low risk. All I needed to do was to take the various assessments to see if I really am human and, once they were completed, I would be in line for beatification and sainthood. I complied with those same assessments - job done.

Imagine my confusion when I got my copy of the next Sentence Planning / Risk Assessment Management bollocks or whatever it is this time (scheduled for the 5th of next month) to discover that my risk levels had been changed again back to high for the public and "known" adult. This is despite the fact that I have progressed massively! So I asked about it.

"What is going on?" was my reasonable question.

The Wallace had no idea. Blodwyn had no idea. Nobody had any idea, until we discovered that it is all the tender and conscientious work of the Smiling Assassin. So, The Wallace is having them changed back - so is Blodwyn - so is my personal officer - and so is HIS line manager.

That only leaves the Smiling Assassin.

By this time of course I should have had all of the reports in the post from The Wallace, the independent psychologist and others. Unfortunately that only applies in the normal world, not here at the Lazy L. The censors cannot do their job - there are not enough of them. In the last few weeks my incoming mail levels have gone from between ten and fifteen letters per week coming in from family and friends, down to three. Mail is piling up in the censors', both incoming and outgoing. Apparently Hoss the Boss won't supply the people for the job - though there are apparently plenty of people to stand around and write bollocks about prisoners.

Some days no mail at all comes onto the wings and we are told that there is none. Over six hundred and fifty cons in this prison and on some days there is no mail for anyone at all? Bollocks!

So, I am confused. I'm not even getting Boudica's letters (and she's not getting mine) despite the fact that she writes every day, as I do myself.

Speaking about the mighty Boudica, the Troll killed another one of her pigeons and Boudica is not happy about it. Maybe she is confused as well.

Wasn't it Henry David Thoreau who said:

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
All I can say is that it's a good job he didn't have to live at the Lazy L.

The Voice In The Wilderness

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