Prison Myths: the Showers

Whether it is in prison-themed films, or TV dramas set in the nick, at least some of the action – usually violent – will involve the showers. In fact, prison showers and assaults, whether physical or sexual, seem to have become almost synonymous in the popular imagination. 

Leslie Nielsen in the prison showers

There are the all-too predictable scenes in classics such as The Shawshank Redemption and Midnight Express, as well as in comedies such as Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult where comedian Leslie Nielsen appears in the jail showers wearing a massive steel chastity belt. No episode of the late 1990s US prison drama Oz was complete without the obligatory shots of cons in the showers. 

Little has changed. The most recent British offering can be seen in the brutal prison film Starred Up (2013), where the lead character, a young con played by Jack O’Connell, almost gets strangled in a revenge attack while he’s naked in the showers. No wonder jail ablutions have such a bad reputation.

In fact, despite all the usual ‘don’t drop the soap’ jokes, you are much more likely to catch a nasty foot infection in the average nick showers than to be the victim of an assault. Generally speaking, prison washing facilities are pretty filthy places and not areas that you’d really want to hang around too long. 

Dropping the soap: a tired old joke

As I highlighted in my recent blog post about what to pack if you’re facing a stretch inside, plastic shower flip flops are an absolute must, not least because in those facilities that actually have curtains, the cubicles can be used by those inmates who share cells and feel the need for – let’s put this politely – some personal time alone, if you catch my drift. Unfortunately, cleaning up afterwards is not always a priority.

A surprisingly large number of younger lads are also habitual body-shavers, for reasons I don’t fully understand myself, although I suspect it’s something to do with male vanity and the cult of body-building in the gym. It’s not uncommon to see cons shaving themselves, including their unmentionables, in the sinks or shower stalls without cleaning up afterwards. Not wishing to wade through their furry detritus, I much preferred to wear flip flops while under the shower.

A friend of mine who is still in a Cat-B recently got a coveted wing job cleaning the showers for the princely sum of £10 a week. Although he is over the moon to have actually managed to get paid work – no easy feat in some nicks these days – he gives me regular updates during his phone calls. 

Grubby showers: a common problem

As he points out, the state of the wing showers sometimes has to be seen to be believed. Even though rubbish bins are provided in the blocks, some cons seem to feel that it’s perfectly normal to leave used razors, empty shower gel containers or other litter lying about in the shower trays. I’ll spare readers his vivid descriptions of having to unblock the plugholes after a busy evening on the wing. 

I’ve experienced the showers in six different nicks, as well as on various wings and in the Block (segregation unit). They range from the very basic – a large wet-room with four shower pipes and absolutely no privacy of any kind (not even a curtain) to new-fangled stainless steel stalls which would put most local rugby clubs to shame.

A few nicks still have the old traditional-style baths, often in cubicles with half-doors (or no door at all), although some of these have been disconnected in order to save money on the water rates – and no doubt to cut back on the need to pay wing cleaners to scrub off the inevitable tide marks. A few prisons do provide proper baths for older prisoners or those with medical conditions, but these tend to be kept locked when not in use.

Prison showers also lack taps and operate on timed push-buttons. This means that, assuming there is a strong flow of warm water, the average shower will necessitate the pressing of the button every minute or so. When I was on home leave from my Cat-D (open prison) and I had my first shower at home after several years away, I kept thinking that the water would suddenly stop until I’d pushed the button again. You just get programmed to keep pressing without giving it much thought.

Definitely not clean

Sometimes cons can behave like disturbed kids. Others are living with serious mental health problems, so the showers and WCs can occasionally have human waste daubed on the walls, especially if the cleaner isn’t too popular. 

In fact, since cleaning up contaminated areas has to be done by specially trained ‘hazardous waste’ cleaners, this chore can attract an attractive cash bonus in some nicks. As a mate of mine who is what is called a qualified ‘industrial cleaner’ once remarked with a big grin: “The ‘phantom shower-shitters’ can do it every day if they like, because I get paid a tenner a time!” Bearing in mind that £10 is a good weekly wage in most nicks, I took his point.

Of course, prison showers – especially the completely open plan variety – can be pretty traumatic for people who’ve not been away from home before, or who feel very self-conscious about their bodies. For those of my generation who are more accustomed to school showers and bathing communally in all-male environments such as the armed services or local sports clubs, prison showers are really no big deal. In fact, I quite enjoyed going in there with a couple of mates in the evenings or after a heavy session in the gym and just chatting as we stood under the showers. 

Old-style football club: prison is better

If I remember rightly, I felt far more exposed to begin with at my London rugby club, which back in the 1990s boasted an ancient concrete wet-room and a massive tiled bath dating back 50 years, than I even did in the nick. But that’s just me, and probably most of the other Army lads, so I do appreciate the problems and anxieties that prison showers can cause for others.

As I’ve mentioned before in my responses to readers’ comments, I recall one really timid young lad aged about 18 – but looking more like he was 16 – who was on remand at my first Cat-B jail. Having no doubt seen prison films and dramas on TV he was too scared (and embarrassed) to even take a shower at all because he was terrified he’d be raped in what was a big wet-room with no dividers or stalls. After a week or more of shower dodging he really stank. You could even smell him as he wandered down the wing.

Rather than let him get punished by the wing staff – failure to keep yourself clean can be a disciplinary offence under the Prison Rules – two of us who were working as peer mentors marched him down the wing to the washroom when the room was empty and stood guard at the door like bouncers while he took his first prison shower. Eventually he started accompanying one or other of us when we took showers and this broke the ice. Once he realised he was actually safe from physical assaults and had got over his bashfulness at showering communally with other blokes, most of whom were a lot bigger and hairier than he was, the problem disappeared.

Shower caps strictly optional

Nevertheless, it has to be noted that some very nasty physical assaults do take place in what old-school cons tend to call the ‘recess’ (from the days of ‘slopping out’ (emptying) cell chamber pots and buckets in the era before in-cell WCs). The washrooms are sometimes chosen as venues for grudge fights between cons –  ‘settlers’ as they are often called. This is mainly because the wing screws are usually too busy elsewhere to be able to monitor what is going on in every recess on a larger wing, particularly in view of the current staffing crisis across the prison estate. Showers and washrooms are among the few places where inmates can get some privacy during association periods.

There can also be some bullying and the showers can be the place that debtors or suspected grasses get taken to receive their punishment, which is usually a good beating with or without a bit of optional ‘water-boarding’ during which an offending con’s head can be plunged into what is likely to be an unflushed bog. Prison can be a bit like a school from hell on occasions, just populated by bigger and nastier bullies.

Prison showers with half-doors

On the whole, however, I’ve never really experienced any problems in prison showers myself, although I have witnessed a fair few nasty incidents, including a defaulting drug debtor who was taking a shower being dragged out of the stall naked by three aggrieved fellow cons wearing heavy work boots who proceeded to give him a very good kicking on the shower-room floor as a not-so-gentle warning to sort his debts out. A fourth prisoner was keeping watch outside the door in case an inquisitive screw should wander by. 

At least the wing cleaner was well chuffed by these events. I seem to recall that he got paid £20 for mopping up the blood from the floor.