John Bowden was imprisoned for murder in 1980 with a life sentence. He was now served 34 years, in prison across England and Scootland. In that time he escaped for 18 months in 1992 and again in 2008 for a few months before recapture; he has held an assistant governor hostage for two days; and received countless beatings, solitary confinements and many other tactics of HMPs to quell dissent and resistance. Throughout, he has maintained fierce resistance, never backing down and for this- despite parole boards admission that he should now be in open jail, if not released – the Prison Service still keep him inside.
In recent months it has now become fully that he is being held due to his opposition to the prison system. They admit that he poses no threat to the public, yet his continuing work highlighting the denial of prisoners rights and the inhability of the prison system to live up to even its own rules, means they will not release him. Still he does not back down and capitulate to their wishes.
His prolific work from inside the prison system in terms of organisation, solidarity, support and writings, details the course of his own time inside. Through his news, updates and analysis of other cases and events, he provides a rare history of the UK prison system, tracking changes, responses to uprisings and threats of privatisation, to name a few. He predicted in 1997 the rise of the secret control units used against troublesome and non-compliant prisoners (FRFI – ‘New control unit opens at Woodhill’), which today we see in the Close Supervision Centres at HMPs Woodhill Wakefield and Whitemoor and Specialist Intervention Unit at HMP Manchester and other temporary units at HMPs Frankland, Full Sutton and Belmarsh. He has done much to expose the abuses meted out in these shadowy institutions where bullying, racism and mental health abuse are the order of the day. This is just one example of the ways that John has monitored the continued and ever increasing brutalities of the UK prison system and is part of his fervent work to maintain a network inside and outside of the prison walls of resistance, that unfortunately since the 80’s, and the policies of Thatcher, Howard, Straw and now with Chris Grayling – especially with the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme – is more and more difficult to keep alive.
This publication is thus a collection of some of his writings over the years, from articles published in FRFI (Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!), Inside Time (a national montly newspaper for prisoners), online, from letters and other means of getting out information such as an interview with the publication From Here On It. It is intended to bring together key articles from his large volume of work introducing/reminding the reader of what has been going on inside and to highlight again John’s situation – reiterating the call to get him out – asking people to write letters, sign petitions and contact him.
Starting with an introduction from Mark Barnsley his comrade and one time cell-mate, then with an earlies article from Nicki Jammeson, what follows are all John’s writings, ending with a petition he has asked people to sign, and information about addresses to write to and links for further information.
Free John Bowden.
(extract from;”Tear Down The Walls, 2007) Leeds ABC. (www.leedsabc.org)
Initially my fight against the prison system was extreme and direct. It reflected a personal belief that I would probably die in prison anyway, so had absolutely nothing to lose by creating situations that would provoke the system into a murderous response. As I saw, and experienced it, the prison system was terrorizing prisoners and imposing regimes designed destroy us. I decided to terrorise it back and engage in actions that would unnerve and demoralise those employed to administer prison repression. In January 1993 at Parkhurst maximum-security prison I took an assistant governor hostage and held him captive in his office for almost two days. Armed police laid siege to the prison and my access to a phone resulted in the close interest and involvement of the media in what was going on. Eventually my demand that my legal representatives and a journalist of my choice be allowed access to the prison to hear and record my complaints against the prison system was conceded and I released the governor unharmed.
I was charged with hostage taking and given an additional ten years, and then buried in solitary confinement for four years the prison system made a serious and determined attempt to physically and psychologically destroy me and pushed me to the very edge of human endurance. Apart from being held in almost clinical isolation in brutal and austere punishment/segregation units, I was also moved around every 28 days or so between jails in an attempt to keep me constantly disorientated and unable to settle. This was intended to keep me in a permanent state of stress and grind me down mentally. I was also subjected to frequent physical assaults and beatings, and made to feel at the complete mercy of my guards. Far from destroying me, however, I was made immeasurably stronger and more resilient by what was being inflicted on me and I came to feel like a soldier in battle, capable of enormous endurance and psychological resourcefulness. The harder they tried to demoralise and dispirit me the greater became my will to survive and somehow fight back.
(from FRFI, 1991)
“There’s brutality; they transfer you from one prison to another and you get it there. If you stand up for yourself you get a bad name and no matter where you go after that they make sure you pay. If you fight them once, you fight them all through your sentence.”
John Walker (Falsely imprisoned for 16 years) interviewed by John Bowden, April 1991, asked about the British prison system.