A recent police investigation into claims of persistent racial assaults and abuse at Whitemoor indicate that the brutality is now endemic and systemic. Already a source close to Cambridgeshire police who are conducting the investigation, has told the Guardian that a "hard core of rogue officers" are responsible for the racist abuse of black prisoners at Whitemoor, which is all very reminiscent of official claims made after the exposure of staff brutality at Wormwood Scrubs when a numerically tiny group of staff were blamed and prosecuted. It emerged subsequently that in fact there had been widespread collusion amongst staff at all levels at the Scrubs, including prison doctors, and the attempted cover-up had probably extended into prison headquarters itself. Far from a "few bad apples" being responsible for the ill-treatment and in some cases torture of prisoners at the Scrubs the reality was that the entire prison was involved in the conspiracy to weave a shroud of silence around what was being inflicted on prisoners at the jail.

The British Medical Council later said that the physical abuse of prisoners at the Scrubs could not have taken place were it not for the collusion of doctors who turned a blind eye to what was going on and covered up for violent prison staff. The latest police investigation into Whitemoor should be seen in the context of substantially increased staff brutality throughout the dispersal system and the vicious disempowerment of long term prisoners generally over the last 15 years or so especially.

The remarks of Brian Caton, General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association, in response to the exposure of racist brutality at Whitemoor are almost laughable: "Our union has done more than any other to rid itself of racism. We have expelled members whose actions were found to be racially motivated. We don't want racists in the POA". The truth is that the POA has always had a disproportionate amount of racists and fascists in its ranks and a sizable presence of BNP and National Front members. It's extremely unlikely that the POA has ever willingly expelled racist officers or made any serious initiative to pursue an anti-racist policy and, on the contrary, has always covered-up for and vigorously defended staff accused of unlawful behavior by prisoners seeking legal justice. The fact is that it's always been prisoners themselves who have highlighted and challenged the unlawful behavior of prison staff, never the POA or anyone else involved in prisons in an official capacity. It is the collusion and complicity of the POA, prison governors, doctors and chaplains, etc. that enormously empowers the racists in uniform and allows them to operate with virtual impunity. The current investigation into racist abuse at Whitemoor will be will be hamstrung by formidable factors: The entrenched hostility and unreluctance to co-operate by prison staff, and the inevitable disinclination of an institutionally racist police force to uncover the real extent of the abuse. The prosecution of racist prison staff at Whitemoor is extremely unlikely and, as usual, it will be down to prisoners themselves to pursue their own legal actions and try to bring to public attention what the prison authorities have always tried desperately hard to keep hidden and unchallenged.