Ritual (Noun): “A series of actions or types of behaviour regularly and invariably followed by someone.”

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Do you have any rituals? I’m not talking about religious or ceremonial practices, but little routines you repeat every day when completing certain tasks.

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Apart from military service, prison is the most ritualistic environment in our society.

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Being incarcerated means adapting to a host of rules, regulations and formalised processes. Everyone is required to know what is expected of them, how they should act, and where they should be at a given time. This applies as much to prison staff as to inmates themselves.

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In prison, rituals control every aspect of our lives – just read any one of the dozens of procedural documents located on the prison intranet: Commissioner’s Requirements, Deputy Commissioner’s Requirements, Local Operating Procedures, etc.

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From laundry, to working, to appropriate clothing – we have a ritual for everything. Even being involved in an accident requires particular rituals. From counts (How we stand. Where we stand. If we say our names); to movement (Always have your card. Where you can and can’t go); how medication is dispensed (Set times. “Hat off”. “Card in the slot.” “Say your name.”); to how we receive our meals (“Line up, in cell order, by last name.”); and when we attend contact visits (pat-down before entry. Where we sit. How we interact with our visitors. And of course – the post-visit strip search).

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And if the regular rituals don’t go to plan? There are more rituals to fall back on – they’re called “codes”.

The daily repetition of prison rituals becomes familiar, comforting and, after a while, mind-numbing. Some inmates find such comfort in routine that they ritualise virtually every aspect of their prison lives. Creating day-long repetition; from the time they get out of bed in the morning to when their head hits the pillow at night. To me this feels like “total surrender to the system” – to be avoided at all costs.

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Once inmates have been lulled into a sense of passivity and conformity, any disruption to those rituals causes fear, anxiety and frustration. “Why can’t they be consistent with unlock times?” “Stupid public holiday – I want to go to work so I’m not bored.” “Dammit! We were supposed to have hot dogs for lunch!”

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This highly ritualised environment is most likely one of the chief causes of inmate institutionalisation. The reliance on order and ritual becomes so all-encompassing that the average inmate can no longer function of their own volition once released. Life is too chaotic, too random – prison becomes their safe-haven.

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One way to survive this creeping indoctrination process is to vary the rituals where possible; eating at whatever time suits you; doing your laundry on different days; varying your fitness regime; even taking random moments to just sit and relax.

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I try to stop and appreciate natural beauty around me – the weather, the mountains beyond the wall, and the bird life.

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Although ironically even nature follows its own rituals.

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Self-catered cottage living allows you to extract a measure of independence from the mundanity of prison life. Keeping your mind and body active through education and physical fitness also helps.

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Ultimately, if you can see the rituals for what they are – control measures – then you can set them aside as irritants, and structure (or de-structure) your day to reduce their impact.

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Nobody wants to become a hostage to these rituals, but the insidious creep of institutionalisation will happen – if you let it.