still dreaming part 6

 

People on the outside like to talk about the biggest criminals in the world, the biggest failures, the biggest scams.
They point at gangs, governments, corporations.

But the truth?
The biggest scam sits right in front of everyone, wrapped in barbed wire and sold as justice.
Prison.

Most people will never understand it. If you’ve never heard the slam of a cell door behind you, you can’t. From the outside, prison looks like order. From the inside, it feels like storage—human warehousing. Put a man on a shelf, take him down when needed.

The UK knows this better than anyone. Their system is boiling over—more than ninety thousand people boxed in, the limit long passed. And while the public nods along to the word “rehabilitation,” thinking it means progress, the truth is far simpler and far uglier:
It’s business.

You can legally pay a prisoner £10–£20 a week for full-time labour. Try that outside and you’d be in handcuffs by Tuesday. But in here? It’s a contract. A system. A scam hidden in plain sight.

And I want people to remember something.
The year is 2025—November, to be exact.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this place is going to explode. I’m not new to the system. I know the signs. You’ve got lads dealing drugs right in front of officers, bold as anything, and nothing is done. Nothing. It’s diabolical.

Look at yesterday.

I work all day, so my only hour of fresh air is at 6 p.m. We walked out, breathed for barely a minute, and by 6:07 we were herded back in.
“There’s a drone above the prison! Get behind your doors!”
Never mind the netting stretched across the exercise yard—apparently the thing was going to drop through the mesh like magic.

So no exercise. Again.

And let’s talk about exercise, since they love to pretend they’re following the rules. We’re supposed to get two hours out of the cell: one hour of fresh air, one hour of association—talking with mates, playing cards, pool, whatever. That’s the law.

I’ve been here five months.
Since I started working, I only get association on Saturday and Sunday.
Fridays are lockdown.
Monday to Thursday I’m working.
So where’s my exercise?
Where’s my hour outside?
Nowhere. Because they don’t follow the law—they just wear uniforms that make them think they’re above it.

And don’t think I’ve stayed quiet.
I’ve raised it again and again since the day I landed here.
They ignore it every time.
So now it’s action—and I’m the one facing the consequences, while they keep failing their duties without so much as a scratch.

HMP Berwyn is chaos wrapped in concrete. Nobody knows what anyone else is doing. Staff shrug. Prisoners roll their eyes. The place is glued together by excuses.

And the drugs?
There are more in here than outside. Coke on the landings, weed in the vents, spice drifting through the hallways like fog. Smoking fish in the toilets, sniffing lines like it’s a nightclub instead of a Category C prison.

Ask an officer for help and they’ll give you the famous grin.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll sort it.”
That sentence means absolutely nothing.

Take the time I trapped my finger in the metal door—blood pouring, throbbing like a heartbeat. They said the nurse would come. She turned up, but talked through the hatch like I was a wild dog. She said she needed an officer so she could examine me properly. Fair enough.

She came back a few minutes later, face blank.

“We can’t open the door. There are too many drones flying about.”

Drones.
Inside a building.
As if my cell being open would somehow let one swoop in through the ceiling tiles.

It was just another excuse. Another way to say:
We don’t care enough to help you.

And that’s the real truth hiding beneath the shiny speeches and official titles. A system on autopilot. A machine grinding through human lives. A place where people are ignored, squeezed for labour, and silenced while the outside world thinks everything is fine.

But it’s not fine.
And when this place finally blows—and it will—remember I said it.
Remember November 2025.