Are people friendly in prison?

Had my usual run outside this afternoon on the Astroturf pitch. The five of us had a fun and lively bit of banter out in the wind and drizzle. There was a lot of laughter and it felt good to feel the camaraderie of a group. We’ve been getting to know each other a bit more over the last week, over meals and out on the Astroturf. There’s a fair amount of gentle teasing of everyone and the humour can often be quite dark. Showing kindness can be difficult in macho environments, and I’ve noticed that in order to express concern or offer advice to fellow inmates, kindness is often blended with comedy. Here’s some snippets of today’s chat:

• Someone accused someone else of having a lisp…which was funny because he himself couldn’t pronounce the word lisp…because he has a lisp
• Another guy was teased for drinking floor polish in an attempt to get high
• There was a lot of speculation about what I was really doing there – did I tunnel into the jail, or follow some visitors in just to see what life was like inside? Or am I the governor’s son, gathering intelligence for the Scottish Prosecution Service.
• I learned about a heroin substitute that is prescribed to people with an addiction in jail. It’s swallowed at the time of issue but people hide it between their gums and the inside of their cheeks so they can sell it on to fellow inmates.
• There was a brief chat about a current news story – apparently Scotland’s prisons are massively over-capacity.
• Ironically, last summer the prison’s beehives became over-crowded, so the bees started swarming and the inmates weren’t able to use the Astroturf.