Things in the jail had been building up to a head for a long time, due to the conditions enforced on us as a result of overcrowding. The State Board had kept promising to alleviate the problems, but nothing was ever done about it. So in the meantime, we Cons were being forced to double up on our cell space and spent the majority of our days locked up in our cells without exercise or recreation, because the limited number of guards could not cope with the number of prisoners. Even meal times were now done on a sort of rotation.

Another result of the problem was that female guards had started to be used for jobs that were always reserved for the men, such as taking us to the shower blocks or, on the rare occasions that we got the chance, to the exercise yards and outdoor gym. Now you may think that hardened criminals like us would take this in our stride, but even we would get pissed off to have some butch female guard staring at us in the open communal showers, giggling and pointing at our nakedness to her mate.

It was even worse in the toilet block, to be sitting there having a crap in the open-fronted cubicles with your trousers around your ankles and have a female guard walk up in front of you and stare as you wiped your arse. Needless to say, tempers were building up to boiling point, and fights and squabbles were breaking out all the time between the cons.

I was in the shower block with about thirty other cons when the riot broke out in the main dining hall. What started it, we never did find out, but it probably started as a result of something trivial. When the sirens sounded, the automatic lock-up system went into action, and all the electrically operated metal doors sealed shut, closing off all the individual cells and blocking off the various sections of the wing into sealed small units.

The shower block that we were in was at the rear of the wing with only one entrance via a corridor leading into the main wing. This corridor had been sealed tight by one of the doors, trapping us in the block with our four guards.

Our guards, one male and three females, were obviously in a state of panic when they realized that they were trapped in the block with thirty naked men. Their only means of defense was the long nightsticks that they carried on their belts. Immediately, they grouped together near the door and drew their sticks.

Now, things would have probably remained calm if the male guard had not struck out at one of the cons who was standing near the door at the time, to get him out of the way. As he struck the guy in the guts hard with his nightstick, we surged forwards and swamped the four guards by sheer weight of numbers.

While we sat on the guards and restrained them, some of the cons used towels and face flannels to bind and gag the unlucky four individuals. They were secured and hogtied with their arms and legs together behind their backs on the floor before we got off of them and reviewed our position.

We did not know what was happening in the rest of the prison, but with the automatic lockdown in force, we were aware that something major had occurred. If the incident had been only minor, they would have quickly drafted in extra guards from the other wings to deal with the situation and got all prisoners back to their cells before initiating a lockdown. We were aware also that our position, segregated at the rear of the wing, would mean that any trouble in the rest of the wing would have to be dealt with before we could be reached and released. So, it looked as if we were going to be there for a very long time.

A couple of the really hard cases who were mates of the con who had been struck by the male guard started to kick out at the man on the floor with their bare feet. And we had to hold them back before they seriously injured the guard. We were getting more and more aware of our position, and that we were in deep shit. Not only had we jumped the guards and disarmed them, one of them had now been seriously assaulted.

With the system the way it was, we would all be held fully accountable for anything that happened in the room, regardless of our individual actions. Any chance of remission or early release had already been blown out of the window as far as we were concerned.

So there we were, thirty frustrated naked men locked in a tiled shower room with three women and a man prisoner in tight-fitting officers’ uniforms, and of course, nothing to lose. At first, the cons started to whisper comments back and forth as to our situation and what to do about it. Then the whispers turned to arguments and loud discussions. We were all aware that things were about to get interesting to say the least.

Then, as if by mutual agreement, some of the men crossed over to one of the female guards and dragged her over to the showers, leaving her gag in place. They undid her bonds and hauled her up on her feet and stretched out her arms above her head. Using towels torn into strips, they tied her wrists to two of the pipes coming out of the walls to the shower heads. Thus, she was suspended in the air with her arms outstretched and her feet a few inches off the ground. A towel was tied around her ankles to keep her legs together and help stop her struggling form from kicking out.

As the men returned to grab another girl, we all started to move, and all three of the other prisoners were dragged over and suspended from the showers in the same way. The guards made an interesting sight, hanging there in their tight-fitting tailored kaki uniforms with sewn-in creases. Their uniforms consisted of a short-sleeved shirt and matching slacks; this was set off by the thick brown leather belt at their waists, which contained the loops for their nightsticks and a pouch containing a pair of handcuffs.

The body contours of their legs, arses, and chests were clearly visible, especially on the three females. All four guards must have been in their mid-twenties with athletic-looking bodies, probably as a result of the fitness regime that they had to follow as part of their job training.