It’s like Shawshank Redemption... but without the redemption. Raphael Vassallo takes a closer look at daily life in Corradino prison, from a prisoner’s perspective
The day starts early at Corradino, with inmates awoken each morning at 6.45, as the day-shift warders arrives to replace his night-time equivalent. In most divisions, cell doors are unlocked at 7.45am, and after morning fall-in (or roll-call) inmates have the choice of attending a daily Mass at 8.15am. The gym opens 15 minutes later, and at 9am the courtyard (of which each Division has its own) is opened until 11.30am. Fall-in takes place again at 12.20pm, after which lunch is served. The courtyard opens again between 2pm (when there is another fall-in) and 3.45pm. Between 4 and 5pm inmates are locked back into their cells while officers take a break. Then there is another fall-in – the fourth of the day – before supper at 6.20pm. Two hours later, after the fifth and final fall-in of the day, inmates are locked back in their cells for the night. And the same pattern repeats itself, with almost no variation, every day.
Food Speak to anyone at Corradino and you are virtually guaranteed to hear complaints about some aspect of the facility’s daily routine. What follows are a few of the more commonly shared complaints, starting with the food.
Unlike other State-managed detention centres, such as those reserved for immigrants in Safi or Hal Far, the provision of meals at Corradino has not been farmed out to private caterers. Food is prepared on site, and the menu remains pretty much unchanged throughout the year (with slight variations to the order of days in which meals are served)
With the exception of a cheese or ham sandwich given separately (and on Sunday, a sandwich with butter and a hard-boiled egg), no other food is given out at other times of the day.
“We’ve been asking for a toaster for ages, so that in case of hunger we would be able to snack on something between lunchtime and supper,” one prisoner complains. “But to no avail. We have to wait each day for the evening portion to be served...”
The only alternative is to buy from a tuck-shop, and here the general complaint is that products are markedly more expensive than they would be ‘on the outside’.
The profits of this tuck-shop are supposed to go towards a kitty to buy basic commodities and essentials – for example, a football to play in the courtyard, or ping-pong balls for table tennis.
However, it has been a while since anything has been bought directly from this kitty.
“No one really knows what happens to the money,” one in mate says simply.
Apart from complaints that portions are insufficient, the quality of the food itself leaves much to be desired. Inmates (some of whom take turns to do the cooking) are ready to swear that the chicken served at Corradino is unfit for human consumption, as it consists in egg-laying hens that have grown too old to lay eggs.
“We are also given an apple every day as ‘fruit’, but where before it was once in the morning and once in the evening, now it’s mornings only.”
Boredom
Many internal problems among the prisoners themselves, or between prisoners and warders, are often put down to a simple lack of meaningful occupation while behind bars.
As a rule, individual prisoners will spend the entire duration of their sentence within the same Division – i.e. within an area of around 100 square feet. As one long-term guest of the facility puts it: “There are some people who have spent eight years or more in the same area – being let out of their cell each morning so they can sit on a bench in a corridor before being taken back into the cell. Every single day...”
For these and other inmates, about the only opportunity to keep themselves occupied takes the form of voluntary work manufacturing Playmobil toys in their Division.
“This is a place of punishment,” the same prisoner remarks. “Forget everything you hear about ‘correctional facilities’. There is nothing correctional about Corradino. Otherwise, there would be an incentive to reform: for example, you would get let out more often if you show progress. But it’s not like that at all. They don’t care how much you reform yourself. You could do an entire five-year university course by correspondence and become a lawyer, but they will still keep you here until you have served your sentence. This is why it’s a prison and not a correctional facility.”
At the same time – and this is a source of constant recrimination among inmates – it seems that persons who do not reform themselves actually stand a better chance of earning a transfer out of their Division.
“Those who take drugs here are given the option to go into rehab during the last two years of their sentence. Those who don’t have any vices have to stay where they are. It makes you almost want to take drugs just to get this type of special treatment...”
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