My Fellow Prisoners

‘That’s them over there’

It’s well known that prison is a place where you encounter the most unusual people. Over these past years a great swathe of humanity, with fascinating stories to tell, has crossed my path.

The feeling of wasted lives being thrown on the dust-heap is often overpowering. Human destinies ravaged, whether by themselves or by the soul-destroying system. I’m going to try to tell you about a few of these people and their situations. I have inevitably changed names and some details, given the circumstances of the people I’m writing about, but the essence of their characters and the situations they find themselves in are kept as I heard and perceived them myself.

After so long in prison I certainly have no illusions about the people I have come across. Nonetheless, many prisoners have their principles. Are they valid ones from society’s point of view? Some are, some aren’t. But they are principles, all the same, for which people are prepared to suffer. Really suffer.

It so happened that prison brought me into contact with a thirty-year-old guy on trial for suspected drug dealing.

Sergei is a long-term drug addict, though you wouldn’t know it from his appearance. He looks a bit younger than his years, very spry, educated. His mother is a Gypsy, his father Russian, which created an interesting situation, culturally speaking. His mother had to leave the Gypsy community, and she now works as a radiologist in a hospital.

Sergei speaks Roma, he knows Gypsy traditions and socializes with other members of the community, but doesn’t feel part of it. He’s been a drug-user for a long time (like most of the young people in his small town), but because he comes from a family of medical professionals and is strong-willed he is meticulous about the purity of the ‘wares’; he also makes sure he eats properly and regularly detoxes – abstaining for several weeks to prevent a constant build-up of his tolerance levels.

In fact, he asked to be put in my cell so that he could go through one of his detox sessions, since the rest of the prison, he says, is not ‘conducive to this’. For a few days he has a rough time, but then it eases up and he tells me his story, little different from dozens of others I’ve heard. As a user he would buy from one particular dealer; the police insisted that he grass on his supplier, he refused, so they fitted him up as a supposed dealer himself. Now he’s back and forth to court where they’ll likely give him between eight and twelve years even though he’s never dealt. They planted some ‘traced’ money on him; where the drugs came from isn’t clear.

I’ve heard so many of these stories. I nod politely, and that’s the end of the conversation.

A few days later Sergei suddenly comes back from court in a state of shock. It turns out that they produced as a witness the person who had set him up. This guy’s about fifty years old. He too was arrested, on some unrelated charge, and was given a medical in the prison hospital, where it was discovered that he had an incurable illness. This man gets into the witness box, recounts his situation, and declares that ‘with my sentence, I’ll die in jail. I’ll be dead soon. I’ve a lot of sins on my conscience and I don’t want to take on another one. So I’m going to tell the truth, and I’m not afraid even if they kill me.’

And then for forty minutes he tells everything about the set-up, how he was dealing drugs on the orders of the police, how he gave them the money, how they got rid of competitors and their clients, and so on. People crowd into the courtroom from the corridor, everyone listening to this chilling confession in deadly silence. Then the witness points at the investigators sitting opposite and says, ‘That’s them over there.’ The investigators get up and try to leave, but the court usher doesn’t let them, saying ‘The judge may want to take you into custody.’ The judge then stops the proceedings and clears the courtroom.

A few minutes later Sergei’s lawyer enters his cell and says that the judge is calling them back in. ‘What do you want me to ask for?’ the lawyer says.

‘My freedom, what else?’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ the lawyer replies and goes out.

An hour later he comes back in. ‘They’re offering you six years.’

‘Not good enough.’

The lawyer leaves again, but returns almost immediately. ‘Three years. You’ve already done more than a year, you’ll be out on parole.’

‘Done.’

‘What next?’ I ask Sergei.

‘Three years, I’m being sentenced tomorrow. Maybe I should have held out to the end?’

‘No, Sergei, you did the right thing. The system doesn’t work any other way.’

With ‘tomorrow’ comes his ‘three-year’ sentence, and the application for parole. He assures me that he will go back to his job as a railway worker and quit the drugs. I wish him luck.

So that’s the system. That’s the kind of people they are. They go to the very limit, to the edge. Which one day awaits us all.