Another week. Another video from within a prison. More words of outrage. This time it’s a video showing a prison officer inside a crowded cell, playing Fifa with a prisoner. Is this a problem? Is prison more of a holiday camp than a punishment? Is this another example of prison officer misconduct, just like the cases of female staff having sex with inmates?
Having been in jail I would say not. Prisons are strange environments. They function – or don’t – depending on whether staff and prisoners work together. Every prison in the country relies on inmates to cook and distribute food, laundry, property and post. For this to happen, there have to be good, appropriate and boundaried relationships between prisoners and staff. Those good relationships can also be a source of helpful intelligence. The Ministry of Justice has said that:
Inmates who amuse themselves by playing video games are very much choosing the least bad option
Prison officers can participate in video games with prisoners under some circumstances as it helps to build positive relationships and trust between staff and prisoners, which ultimately helps to tackle violence in prisons.
Based on my own experience as an inmate, I agree. When I was a prisoner at HMP Wandsworth we had an issues with a man on the wing. He was behaving erratically and aggressively. On one occasion the man came to my cell during ‘association’ and told me he would kill me if I walked near him again. I stood, stared him down and told him that I had my own business to deal with and wasn’t bothered about him. After a long moment, he left.
I conferred with friends on the wing. He’d been threatening other inmates at random, and had even pushed an old man over in the exercise yard. We had a quiet word with a good officer who we trusted, and the dangerous man was moved. As a result he didn’t assault any of us. This is just one example of how good relationships between staff and prisoners help jails function.
It’s important to understand the officer playing Fifa in this context. An officer taking a few moments to play a video game with prisoners is absolutely nothing like having a sexual relationship with an inmate. Building a healthy, professional relationship via kicking a ball about, even virtually, is an absolutely appropriate way for a prison officer to behave.
Should prisoners be playing video games? A properly functioning, rehabilitative prison system would have them doing purposeful activity all day. We don’t offer that. Most inmates spend 22 hours a day in their cells. It shouldn’t be like this. The reality is that most people, if they were locked in a box the size of a parking space all day, would need a distraction. Many prisoners turn to drugs, drink, self-harm or violence against others. In that context, inmates who amuse themselves by playing on old models of consoles, only available at high cost via the ‘catalogue’ within jails, are very much choosing the least bad option.
I experienced this myself. I was jailed during the Covid lockdown, meaning that for many months I spent 23 or even 24 hours a day in my cell. What kept me sane was reading, writing, and a 20-year old Xbox console, along with a copy of Skyrim, the immersive, open world roleplaying game. The sensation of being able to explore a vast, open wilderness was particularly helpful to my sanity during those months of confinement.
Many people might say ‘so what?’ and insist that prisoners should suffer during their sentences. But the purpose of jail should not be to do harm. Breaking people so that they leave jail with worse mental health, and often with new addictions, makes them more likely to commit further crime and us all less safe.
The purpose of prison should be to reduce crime, and ideally this should involve making every inmate get out of their cell all day to work or study. But if we are going to lock prisoners in their cells all day, then allowing those men to play a video game is a perfectly reasonable pastime. It’s also very sensible that prison officers are using it as an opportunity to build appropriate relationships. It’s nothing like the appalling breach of the law and ethics seen in cases where officers have had sexual relationships with inmates or smuggled contraband into jails.
The real issue here, of course, is that this particular event was surreptitiously filmed by a prisoner using a contraband phone. That man has done something very wrong and has demonstrated yet again that our jails are utterly insecure. Don’t be distracted by the footage. The real problem is that British prisons are awash with contraband – phones, drugs and even weapons. In that context, some staff and inmates playing Fifa is a total distraction from the real issues.
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