interview
Island Life - April/May 2010
Running a prison
doesn’t mean a
woman has to
be an honorary
man, finds Roz
Whistance, on
meeting governor
Vicky Baker
Photo: Vicky pictured at Gurnard seafront 2010
Ultimate power with
a velvet touch
“I can honestly say in my nearly 17 years in
a whole host of preconceptions about prison
haven’t laughed about something,” says Vicky
officers. Ok, so she is a neat person, carefully
Baker. “Because that’s what human beings do
dressed with practical short hair. That much
for you.”
goes with the territory. But where you might
Having a laugh is not something you readily
expect the female equivalent of Officer McKay,
associate with the cheerless institutions where
Fletcher’s scourge in TV’s Porridge, Vicky Baker
people are forcibly detained. But then Vicky
has a quiet manor and gentle warmth, and that
Baker, governor at the Immigration Removal
essential sense of humour.
Centre at Haslar, near Gosport and previously
“One of the first jobs in the day is accounting
deputy governor at Parkhurst prison on the Isle
for prisoners or accounting for detainees.
of Wight, is not exactly what you expect of a
Because if you can’t account for them, you
prison governor.
don’t know where they are, and they might
She is a woman, for a start. Although, as she
says, there are more and more women coming
through the system, she is one of the few so far
to have reached the top slot.
38
Indeed, meeting Vicky means throwing away
the service I haven’t had a single day when I
have escaped! And that’s always a bit of a
worry!”
Vicky is giving a flavour of life as a prison
officer. Aged 49, she has worked in a number
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