Surviving on the inside

This has been well known for years: it's one of those messages passed on from those who are released from custody to those at risk of going inside.

It's not just about getting better food. It is also a way of cocking a snook at the system. A custodial experience demands a very subtle blend of behaviour if you are to find an effective path between the discipline and regulation of the institution, and the support and solidarity of fellow prisoners. Being over-compliant and "playing the game" may make you a good inmate in the eyes of the staff but leaves you subject to humiliation and perhaps even bullying by other inmates. Although overt challenges to authority and "playing up" may command respect and popularity on the wing and in the block, it makes doing time less tolerable because of the sanctions and restrictions that are subsequently imposed.

According to the folklore of those who pass through the secure estate, the best way through is to bend the rules as much as possible; that is, to play the system. The trick is to avoid, whenever possible, custody staff who work by the rule book and operate a strict disciplinary approach to their relationship with prisoners. Instead, you develop the skill of identifying those who are more soft touches, discovering your room for manoeuvre in your relationships with them, and then maximise their "exploitation" while minimising the likely punitive consequences.

It's rather dispiriting to think in this way about what goes on in the secure estate. Yet this is the cultural knowledge passed down between the generations. Before going inside, most young offenders have already internalised the theory of survival in custody; once inside, they simply have to work out how to put it into practice.

Howard Williamson, professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan