The Prisons, Institutions For Creating Submissive Citizens.

        John Bowden was sentenced to 25 years in prison, 40 years later he is still there, even although all the criteria set by the parole board have been met, according to the prison professionals who asses these things, the parole board still hold on to their pig-head authoritarian mindset, and refuse him parole. The fact that he is an anarchist and stands firmly by his anarchist principles of resistance to injustice even within the confines of prison, is the main reason for his denial of parole. They demand total and submissive obedience to their idea of the perfect citizen, he must not resist the injustices that he sees all around him. After all that is the real reason for the existence of the prison system. You can forget all that crap about re-rehabilitation and protecting the public, that is the thin veneer they spread of this repressive tool of the state. 

This from 325:

        On the 22nd January 2019 after almost forty years in prison the Parole Board considered the case for either my release or continued imprisonment. In the case of life sentence or indeterminately sentenced prisoners once such prisoners have been detained for the length of time originally recommended by the judiciary or Secretary of State, in my case 25 years, then the Parole Board has a statuary and legal obligation and responsibility to review the case for either the release or the continued detention of such prisoners. At three previous parole hearings my release had been denied by the Parole Board on the grounds that I was a “difficult and anti-authoritarian” prisoner, and insufficiently obedient to prison authority; my actual risk or danger to the public, the prime official criteria for denying the release of life sentence prisoners, was never cited as a reason for my continued imprisonment.

        At my parole hearing on the 22nd January all of the professionals employed to assess the potential risk of prisoners the community, prison psychologists, probation officers, etc., all provided evidence stating that my actual risk to the community was either minimal or non-existent and that I could be ‘safely managed’ outside of prison. My lawyer informed the parole panel that the three chief criteria determining the ‘suitability of release’ of life sentence prisoners [has the prisoner served a sufficient length of time to satisfy the interest of retribution?; does the prisoner represent a minimal risk to the community?; can the prisoner be safely managed in the community?] were all confirmed in my case and therefore there was no real lawful justification for my continued imprisonment, especially as I remained still in prison almost fifteen years beyond the length of time originally recommended by the judiciary. The issues raised by the parole panel were not in fact my potential risk to the community or potential for violent behaviour, all of which had been assessed by the system professionals who gave evidence at the hearing and who unanimously attested that my risk of either violent behaviour or risk to the community was minimal; the main concern of the parole panel was my propensity to challenge prison authority and my association with radical political groups on the outside, specifically Anarchist Black Cross. Representatives from the London Probation Service informed the panel that all of the groups that I was associated with were lawful and none were associated with illegal activity, and in terms of my relationship with the prison system whilst I continued to question and challenge what I perceived as abuses of power, I had not been involved in violent protest actions against the system for over twenty years.

        At the conclusion of the parole hearing the panel announced that it would deliver its decision regarding my release within fourteen days. By law parole panels must deliver decisions within fourteen days of hearings.

On the fourteenth day following my hearing the Parole Board claimed that it had not in fact concluded the hearing on the 22nd January but had “adjourned” it and would conclude with a “paper hearing”, when I and my lawyer would not be present, on the 20th February. They also requested additional information from the probation officers responsible for my post-release supervision concerning the conditions and rules of that supervision. The probation officers subsequently provided the Board with the information, and reiterated that in their professional opinion I could be safely managed and supervised in the community.

On the 20th February the Parole Board then claimed that they had “deferred” the “paper hearing” because one of the Board members considering my release had decided to go on leave. In early March in response to inquiries from the Probation Service regarding a parole decision, the Parole Board said that they were in the process of “finalising” their decision. What was becoming increasingly apparent was that the Parole Board simply did not want to make a decision, or at least a decision authorising my release, which placed them in something of a quandary.

        Confronted by the evidence and recommendations of system professionals such as probation officers and prison-hired psychologists who had all stated that there was no public protection justification for my continued imprisonment, the Parole authorities were denied a legitimate legal cover for my continued detention, and obviously were extremely reluctant to openly declare the true reason for their desire to deny my release – a determination to continue my punishment for ever having dared to fight and challenge the prison system, and my refusal to compromise or surrender my political integrity and spirit. In reality, when considering the release of life sentence prisoners one criteria is given absolute priority over all others, and it certainly isn’t “public protection” or the propensity, or not, of the prisoner to criminally re-offend. The most fundamental criteria governing the release decision of life sentence prisoners is the absolute obedience of the prisoner to the authority of those enforcing that imprisonment? Essentially, prisons exist as instrument of social control to tame the rebellious poor and condition them into total obedience to the system; “rehabilitation” is simply a veneer used to legitimise an institution that is intrinsically brutal and inhuman.-------------

---------------Britain now currently has the highest population of life sentence prisoners in the whole of Europe and as the social and political climate here becomes increasingly more repressive and retributive that population of the civil dead will continue growing.

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