Jack the Lag

Jack Osbourne has had a pretty scary life. As well as growing up alongside a bat-chomping father, and Kelly Osbourne, he’s battled drugs, attempted suicide and allowed himself to be chased by raging bulls. Now, in a new  TV series, he’s put himself in a situation even more chilling: spending time with convicted murderers and gang members. For his episode of  Virgin 1’s The Prisoner, Jack spent a week in Shelby County Jail in Memphis, Tennessee – a detention centre where convicted criminals await sentencing.

‘It’s a really eclectic group,’ Jack tells Maxim. ‘You have guys who haven’t paid parking tickets to guys who have killed five people!’ Among these fine-dodgers, murderers and thieves are over 1,000 self-confessed gang members, many of whom belong to the notorious Chicago Gangster Disciples mob.  ‘They have a lot of clout in the jail,’ Jack says. ‘There are loads of guys with tattoos where they’ve been stabbed or shot. One guy, who’d been busted for murder, was saying to me, “I’m an original gangster, you know. I’m the real deal. I’m blood in, blood out.”’

It’s this gangland tradition that has established Shelby as one of the deadliest prisons in America. In 2001, a full-scale riot broke out, with inmates seizing control of the fourth floor for over eight hours. They smashed all the windows, threw debris from the building and set fire to the sheets. One inmate was stabbed and over 540 others were deported to other prisons. Thankfully things have improved massively since, but tension still reigns throughout the prison and violence is never far away.

‘There were a lot of fucking lunatics and people were always giving each other shit,’ recalls Jack.  ‘There was a fight on the floor above us and we saw these two young kids being taken to hospital, both with busted noses. Later on, this kid walks past one of the prison guards, an older guy, and the guard goes to him, “Looks to me like you’re pretty bad at fighting!” ’As amused as the guards might be by these inmate scraps, Jack says, ‘If someone gets really crazy, they’ll hit a panic button, then loads of prison guards will appear and kick the shit out of you!’

Most of the inmates Jack spoke to were happy to tell him exactly what they’ve been convicted of, but almost all maintained their innocence: ‘Everyone lies. Everyone says, “Nah, I didn’t do it, it was my cousin!” Some people seem like nice guys, but you can’t always tell.’

So has this experience left Jack feeling sympathetic to the inmates at Shelby? ‘Well, the jail stinks and the food is grotesque – but it’s a jail! It’s not meant to be nice and that’s one of my qualms of how the system is. Why do criminals think they deserve all these rights? They’re criminals, they broke the law. I believe in capital punishment and public floggings.’ Harsh words, indeed. If ever Tennessee needed a firm-handed new Governor, it seems as though Mr Osbourne could well be their man.

See The Prisoner: Jack Osbourne on 22 Oct at 10pm on Virgin 1