Prisons Books

DAY 5 MONDAY 23 JULY 2001 5.53AM 'The sun is shining through the bars of my window on what must be a glorious summer day. I've been incarcerated in a cell five paces by three for twelve and a half hours, and will not be let out again until midday; eighteen and a half hours of solitary confinement. T...

The final volume of Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries covers the period of his transfer from Wayland to his eventual release on parole in July 2003. It includes a shocking account of the traumatic time he spent in the notorious Lincoln jail and the events that led to his incarceration there - it also ...

On 9th August 2001, 22 days after Jeffrey Archer was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury, he was transferred from HMP Belmarsh, a double-A Category high-security prison in south London, to HMP Wayland, a Category C establishment in Norfolk. He served 67 days in Wayland and during that time...

For more than 160 years New Zealand has struggled to find a formula for dealing with criminals in a humane, workable and effective way. Arthur Hume, the first Inspector of Prisons, presided over a regime of hard physical labour and severe discipline under austere conditions. Changing philosophies ov...

A classic memoir of prison breaks and adventure -- a bestselling phenomenon of the 1960s Condemned for a murder he had not committed, Henri Charriere (nicknamed Papillon) was sent to the penal colony of French Guiana. Forty-two days after his arrival he made his first break, travelling a thousand gr...

The Carandiru House of Detention, in the teeming city of Sao Paulo, was the largest and most crowded prison in Latin America. Known as the 'Old House', it was also highly unusual in the way it was governed. Closed to the outside world, and even largely to the wardens, it was run almost entirely by t...

Welcome to Hotel Kerobokan, or Hotel K, Bali's most notorious jail. Its walls touch paradise; sparkling oceans, surf beaches and palm trees on one side, while on the other it's a dark, bizarre and truly frightening underworld of sex, drugs, violence and squalor. Hotel K's filthy and disease ridden c...

This book distils thirty years of research on the impacts of jail and prison environments. The research program began with evaluations of new jails that were created by the US Bureau of Prisons, which had a novel design intended to provide a non-traditional and safe environment for pre-trial inmates...

Go To Hell is a blistering expose of malfeasance, abuse and corruption within the Thai prison system. It is the true story of an innocent British businessman, resident in Thailand, who has so far endured 15 horrendous years of hardship in captivity. As his release date approaches, this controversial...

This book addresses the issue of the rapidly growing number of elderly men entering and serving time in prison. It draws upon extensive original research in four prisons holding concentrations of men aged sixty-five plus years. It examines, in fine-grained detail, the emotional, psychological and p...

Send Them to Hell is an authentic, yet horrifying, story of a two decades journey through the abominations that make up a significant measure of Thailand's Law Enforcement, Criminal Justice and Penal systems, as well as the Child Sex and Prisoner Slavery that runs rampant in that country. Graphicall...

Marching Powder is the story of Thomas McFadden, a small-time English drug smuggler who was arrested in Bolivia and thrown inside the notorious San Pedro prison. He found himself in a bizarre world, the prison reflecting all that is wrong with South American society. Prisoners have to pay an entranc...

The extraordinary story of Fiona Fullerton's secret correspondence with life sentence prisoner and suspected cold war spy Alex Alexandrovich. Including their letters and Alex's tender poems.Author BiographyActress, Bond girl and author Fiona Fullerton.

The impact of the United Nations "Healthy Prisons" initiative has highlighted the importance of health and health promotion in incarcerated populations. This invaluable book discusses the many health and medical issues that arise or are introduced into prisons from the perspective of both inmates an...

Published in 1844, this extraordinary book consists of the diaries of Robert Gully and Captain Denham, the Commander of the merchant vessel Ann, who were imprisoned in China in 1842, and notes exchanged between the two men (who were held captive in separate places). After some months of imprisonment...

The history of Wellington's gaols is grim but vivid, nowhere more so than at the Terrace Gaol, which for nearly a century housed the region's thieves and murderers, drunks and lunatics, vagrants and prostitutes. Many inmates went on to become folk heroes, writers, social reformers or politicians, li...

As Frankie Owens writes in The Little Book of Prison (LBP), "Society wants to know about prison life, an interesting place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there". An easy-to-read prison survival guide of do's and don'ts. Perfect for anyone facing trial for an offence that may lead to impriso...

Prison is a harsh enough place, but being a foreigner ("farang") in a strange land, and this ordeal becomes a lot more horrifying. "Rotting in the Bangkok Hilton" chronicles T. M. Hoy's descent into the madness, horror, and insanity provoked by South-East Asian prison life. You see from his eyes the...

Originally published as a series on "Reality Sandwich" and "The Huffington Post," "Exile Nation" is a work of "spiritual journalism" that grapples with the themes of drugs, prisons, politics, and spirituality through Shaw's personal story. In 2005, Shaw was arrested in Chicago for possession of MDMA...

James Neild (1744-1814), penal reformer and philanthropist, first became interested in the welfare of prisoners after visiting a friend jailed for debt. He went on to investigate prisons across Britain, France, Flanders, and Germany, fundraising to release those incarcerated for petty debt. In 1772 ...

Henry Mayhew (1812-87), social reformer and journalist, is well known for his classic work of research on the London poor (also reissued in this series) and as one of the co-founders of Punch magazine in 1841. While working as the metropolitan correspondent for the London Morning Chronicle, Mayhew i...

'From the moment I crossed the mountain I fell in love. With the place, which was more beautiful than any place I'd ever seen. With the people I met there. And with a way of looking at life that was deeper, richer and wiser than any I'd known before. When I left I dreamt of clouds on the mountain. I...

'There are 3,000 drugged-up psychopaths, armed to the teeth with blades, shooters and bombs. That's the only way I can describe Yare. It's a murderous viper's nest of assassins, cut throats and killers'. When James Miles and his best friend Paul Loseby were caught smuggling ten kilos of cocaine out ...

At the heart of his book is his conclusion that prison simply does not work, failing on three fundamental levels. The view of the popular media is that when prisoners are locked up they cannot commit crime. This is not true. Podmore shows how crime actually proliferates in prison, how serious organi...

This book uses the landmark case Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union to examine the strategies of prison inmates using race and radicalism to inspire the formation of an inmate labor union. It thus rekindles the debate over the triumphs and troubles associated with the use of Black Power ...

The only book on Dovegate TC Contains first-hand insider accounts by staff and inmates Describes the latest developments in TC work Provides extensive data and references A closely observed account of the UK's first private sector prison-based Therapeutic Community (TC) - a 200-bed facility. The bo...

As of 2007, more than 9.25 million people were imprisoned worldwide. Almost half of the persons imprisoned are in the United States, China and Russia. The United States has more persons in prison per capita than any country in the world. Prisons The World Over offers a comprehensive overview of pris...

Kilmainham Gaol is a building with a remarkable history. From 1796, when the first prisoners were received within its portals, to 1924, when the last prisoners were removed, it held over 100,000 people. In the traditional nationalist linear narrative of Irish history no other gaol in Ireland holds s...

The name John Howard (1726-1790) is well-known as that of the man after whom the UK's oldest penal reform charity, the Howard League, is named. Tessa West's new book breaks fresh ground in looking at both Howard's immense legacy in terms of prison reform as well as his fascinating character and per...

As banks crashed, belts tightened, and cupboards emptied across the country, American prisons grew fat. Doing Time in the Depression tells the story of the 1930s as seen from the cell blocks and cotton fields of Texas and California prisons, state institutions that held growing numbers of working pe...

Two and a half million men and women are under lock and key in the US prison system, including nearly 5 percent of the adult African American male population. The prison security workforce employs more people than Ford, General Motors, and Walmart combined. This issue of Labor offers a systematic hi...

In April 1981, two white Texas prison officials died at the hands of a black inmate at the Ellis prison farm near Huntsville. Warden Wallace Pack and farm manager Billy Moore were the highest-ranking Texas prison officials ever to die in the line of duty. The warden was drowned face down in a ditch....

More than the citizens of most countries, Americans are either religious or in jail - or both. But what does it mean when imprisonment and evangelization actually go hand in hand, or at least appear to? What do "faith-based" prison programs mean for the constitutional separation of church and state,...

Just as consumer demands for mobile devices have risen rapidly, the use of cell phones by prison inmates has grown as the U.S. prison population continues to expand. This use is considered contraband by prison officials. The number of cell phones confiscated by prison officials has dramatically incr...

Palestinian prisoners charged with security-related offences are immediately taken as a threat to Israel's security. They are seen as potential, if not actual, suicide bombers. This stereotype ignores the political nature of the Palestinian prisoners' actions and their desire for liberty. By highlig...

There are 3,000 drugged-up psychopaths, armed to the teeth with blades, shooters and bombs. That's the only way I can describe Yare. It's a murderous viper's nest of assassins, cut throats and killers.' When James Miles and his best friend Paul Loseby were caught smuggling ten kilos of cocaine out o...

Elizabeth Fry (nee Gurney, 1780-1845) was descended from two wealthy Quaker banking families. Her Quaker faith was crucial to her adult life and she became active in social reform. Despite having eleven children, she was active in community work, and became a Quaker minister. Persuaded to visit the ...

Elizabeth Fry (nee Gurney, 1780-1845) was descended from two wealthy Quaker banking families. Her Quaker faith was crucial to her adult life and she became active in social reform. Despite having eleven children, she was active in community work, and became a Quaker minister. Persuaded to visit the ...

Prepare yourself for a journey into the indonesian penal system, a world where murder, torture and fights to the death are the norm. "Hell's Prisoner" is the powerful story of one man's battle to survive in some of the world's cruellest and most inhumane prisons. Christopher Parnell, wrongly accused...