I tried to be a builder once and it’s dangerous enough at a new build in the Mearns nevermind in prison.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43350287

In summary: Two tradesmen were uncomfortable with changes made by their employer to the procedures for carrying out repair works at a prison. They raised the issue internally to deaf ears. They raised the issue with the Governor of the prison and alerted them of their intention to inform the HSE of the grievance. Upon discovering this intention, the men lost their jobs for bringing their employer into disrepute and 'making things difficult'. Their case went to an employment tribunal which was successful in determining their dismissal as unfair.

I’d recently left a sedentary, sit downy, office job and decided that my soft hands needed to experience what my late Gaga Bill would call 'actual work' (he’d clearly never experienced the emotional trauma which comes with a folder full of unlinked mail but that’s for another day).

I wasn’t up to much and the quality of my work very much reflected that fact but despite my lack of experience handling jaggy tools and spinny things with teeth, there were more than a few occasions where I was trusted (abandoned) to crack on with things myself under nothing more than the glaring scrutiny of the person whose bathroom I was butchering. I’d felt safer to be honest and was undoubtedly under more pressure than I should have been for someone so na?ve. But I was a new fish, learning by doing, treating it as a life lesson. It was good for me, keep calm and carry on, a baptism of fire, sink or swim, that’s just the way it's done. As bananas as my gaffer was for leaving me unattended to play with a bag full of power tools and a set of double doors at a grand apiece, I like to think that if the kitchen at Barlinnie was needing done, he might have come with me.

For repairs to the prison the normal course of action, the traditional, established course was to work in pairs where in essence, 1 man works and the other keeps a lookout (Ironically also a popular tactic employed by a few of the guests of the facility). Having been employed for more than 20 years each and with 'unblemished disciplinary records' we can assume that this method was effective in carrying out necessary work.

For #reasons it was decided that a new policy should be put in place where most works should be carried out alone. Meaning that workers would be wholly responsible for both any works they carried out and any necessary equipment needed for those works simultaneously.

A major hazard associated with lone working - physical violence from members of the public and/or intruders: https://www.hsa.ie/eng/Topics/Hazards/Lone_Workers

If Alexander Armstrong gave 100 people 100 seconds to name as many places as they could where one might be at risk of physical violence, how far up the list do you think prison would be? I have a feeling it would be sandwiched right at the top in between ‘a boxing match’ and ‘this office after eating the last Star Bar from the vending machine’.

When I compare the situations I was left in and risks I was being asked to take with those that the two gentlemen involved were being asked to assume I keep coming back to the same thought: How safe would I have felt with armed robber number 3 and the getaway driver eyeing up my tool bag? How safe would you feel?

Things are expensive, time is money, margins are tight, costs need to be reviewed, policies need to be updated, we get it. I think that every reasonable person would understand that, but when you can’t take a chocolate milkshake through security at the airport without half a dozen people whipping it off you and telling you it’s potential for harm, are we really asking workers to take extremely and so obviously dangerous items; hammers, chisels, utility knives, saw blades, power tools etc and extremely and so obviously hazardous chemicals, paints, varnishes, white spirits etc into places where there are people convicted of violent crime by themselves without hesitation or concern? Are we too satisfied with how safe our jails are that we need to increase the opportunity to obtain so obviously dangerous items in them?

If you think that that is acceptable then perhaps you need to be locked up.

Robert

WABT