Klink

Sunday was an odd day. I spent four hours of it inside a high security prison.
Let me explain.
I was going to have a look round as part of another thing that I'm involved in. There were five of us in total. The prison was Whitemoor. It's one of eight high security prisons in the UK and is situated about half an hour away.
So I'll give you a brief run down on the visit.

Getting in was the first thing. We had to provide quite a few details a while ago for checking. On the day two forms of ID, one of which had to be photo ID. We were then signed in and had to go through security i.e. metal detectors, X-ray machines for jackets, full frisk. Then get photo badges made.
The duty Governor then came down to meet us and take us up to a meeting room. At this point the hairs start to stand up on the back of your neck. The first few doors were electric, sliding ones. As you get further in, starts the constant locking and unlocking of gates. We must have gone through a dozen just to get to this meeting room, and that was still in the office block.
After a chat about the whole place, he then took us on a tour. We didn't have the full clearance for meeting prisoners, so were took on a tour at lunchtime when they are all locked up for about 80 minutes.
It was a very strange feeling and there's no way that I can describe it in words. On the way into the wings, we passed a big notice board with lots of photos of the prisoners on it. One particular section was labelled "Known Hostage Takers" i.e. very dangerous.
We first went to the segregation block and it was really quite bizarre. I could see maybe 20 cell doors, all locked. Knowing that behind each one was someone who had done something to warrant a sentence of possibly in excess of 30 years (the minimum sentence at Whitemoor is 4 years). We looked at various areas throughout the tour including a visit to C-Wing where they are mostly Cat A prisoners and are typically sex offenders, informers and other sorts of prisoners who other prisoners hate. Again, they were all locked away. The security was very, very tight. CCTV cameras everywhere and many of the doors not only had to be unlocked by the Governor, but also were linked back to the Control Room and so required an electronic unlocking with mini cameras to see who was there.
I could go into much more detail, but I guess you've got the idea now.
All in all a very, very interesting visit. It may be something that I get more involved in.