Updated on 03 August 2010
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| Grendon Prison |
| FAIRSCAPE COMMENT An up-to-date, simple, honest - and almost unwitting support - of the Fairscape system. Yes, Noel, we actually need no more of the old type of prison - and one large one like Grendon that copes with all offenders. The big difference at Fairscape, of course, is that all offenders have to deal with rehabilitation or stay incarcerated. Click here for the Fairscape website. |
As Britain's "safest prison" comes into the spotlight after an inmate was stamped to death by another prisoner, former Grendon prisoner and author of A Rusty Gun, Noel 'Razor' Smith tells Channel 4 News there should be more prisons like it.
Robert Coello was found in his cell lying in a pool of his own blood in the country's only therapeutic jail.
The 44-year-old former bus driver from Whitley, Berkshire had been jailed after admitting four counts of rape and 12 other sex attacks on a schoolgirl. He was sentenced four years ago.
Grendon in Buckinghamshire houses the most damaged, dangerous and disturbed men in England and Wales. It prides itself on using therapy to rehabilitate violent offenders.
This is the first time in the category B prison's 50 year history that an inmate has been killed.
One former Grendon Prison inmate has told Channel 4 News that the prison works with prisoners who want to change and that there should be more prisons like it.
Noel 'Razor' Smith told Channel 4 News: "In regular prison you have to go on ‘offending behaviour courses’ before you are allowed to do anything. But they are so simple they could be completed by a half sensible chimp.
"The only people who are offered group therapy are those who are very violent or sexual offenders. At Grendon you’re not selected, you have to ask to go and it’s entirely voluntary.
"If you don’t get on they send you back to the prison you came from.
"First they need to ascertain that you’re intelligent enough to cope with it. There’s therapy every single day, psycho therapy, art therapy, drama.
"I was there for five years. Grendon is a bit more expensive than ordinary prisons, but not maximum security ones. The wardens there are trained as facilitators, they’re just normal prison staff, but more caring and they are selected especially.
"I heard some really terrible things. A horrifying amount of people there had terrible life stories of emotional abuse and physical abuse. I had to listen to so much of it, it was awful, really hard.
"I have been a criminal all my life, but Grendon has the lowest reconviction rate in the UK. They realise that you can only be rehabilitated if you want to be, but many people in prison don’t see an alternative to a life of crime.
"There should be more prisons like this but as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink."
