As a young teenager from Manchester in the year 1990, I can just about remember the famous Strangeways Prison riot happening.  By this I mean I have vague recollections of it appearing on the news.  I can remember for example the scene of the inmates on top of the rooftops.  It only dawned on me until recently watching this brilliant documentary about the event, that I never actually knew what it was all about.  I guess I just assumed it was bored prisoners just rebelling and wanting a bit of fun.  This BBC documentary superbly written by David Belton to mark the 25th anniversary of the Strangeways Prison riots, put such an uprising into context.  The riot held deep significance and meaning for the inmates. It was the result of them continually being kept in an Victorian archaic institution which had deplorable conditions.  This was the prisoners way of fighting back!

The documentary was a well balanced piece of work because for the first time ever all sides of the story were heard.  Significant first hand accounts from the ringleaders were given, in the form of Paul Taylor and Allan Lord.  This was counterbalanced alongside the evidence from the Prison Officers who experienced the ordeal.  The governor at the time Brendan O’Friel also gave his interesting version of the events.  The accounts from all these people really made for compelling viewing.  There was one account from a prison officer that was particularly powerful.  He was there in the chapel when the riot broke out and we see him almost break down as he recalled what happened.

Scum is a 1979 film written by Roy Clarke and stars a young brilliant Ray Winstone in the lead role.  It portrays the brutality of life inside a British borstal. Violence, intimidation, racism and bullying all feature strongly throughout.  The borstal warders are active participants in such behaviour too, warder Mr Sands(played by John Judd) in particular being a brutal enforcer.  Roy Clarke’s critique of the borstal system is intentionally a tough watch in places. He is critical of the brutality we witness but also that no rehabilitation is offered in such an institution.

I refer to the film Scum because it immediately came to my mind when this documentary was over.  There are so many similarities between the two.  As in the film for example, prison officers back then at Strangeways were alleged to have been implicit in racism, violence and intimidation towards the inmates. The film I’ve just remembered has a riotous scene in it too.  I was truly amazed how barbarically the criminal justice system treated prison inmates back then. No great efforts or programmes for rehabilitation were offered inmates back in 1990.  The riot in Strangeways evidently got out of hand and you can not justify some of violence that took place, but at the same time I can understand it in a way. I now fully get why the riot too place.  Eleven years after the film called Scum, inmates it was detailed were still being treated like such in this real life adult prison.

What I liked most about this documentary is that is humanised the demonised from the riot.   I am not condoning the crimes they committed for one second, however in a civilized society such as ours the living conditions that they had to endure inside this prison were clearly not acceptable.   In the aftermath, The Strangeways Prison riots resulted in some good being done.  The Woolf Report concluded that conditions in the prison had been intolerable and it recommended major reform of the entire prison system.  The Guardian newspaper praised the report as the blueprint for the restoration of “decency and justice into jails where conditions had become intolerable”.  Then a statistic was flashed upon the screen at the end of the documentary which stated that still seventy-one of our UK jails  remain over populated. I could not help but be angered at this fact. England and Wales has the highest prison population in Europe yet there is not sufficient enough room for inmates. Something is therefore going wrong somewhere is it not?

A fascinating documentary that had a immensely powerful effect on me, definitely worth a watch!