Inside Wakefield Prison   by Jonathan Levi, Emma French

The book is a product almost entirely of interviews with people who have managed, one way or another, to get inside Wakefield prison. It is thus very second-hand, and admits to being contradictory in places. There are Lots of interesting tidbits, but overall it is a bit of a mess. Spends a lot of time talking about the effort of producing a book, with many sentences starting, “Our contributor X, in contrast, says …”. On the whole one gets the impression that both prisoners and the staff are an equally rough bunch, with the contributors to the book the least bad people. The prose is not fluid.

It would have been nice to have had a deeper insight into the prisoners from professional psychiatrists who have worked at the prison, instead of the somewhat shallow expositions of the prison staff.

Almost all the effort of the prison staff seems to be in keeping prisoners alive. It is acknowledged that they are all locked in there for a good number of years (at least four), and the staff simply have to force a daily working routine on the prisoners, and do their best to de-escalate violent thoughts and outright acts―including murder and suicide by any means.

There are chapters ostensibly dedicated to specific, notorious, prisoners, but these soon lose steam and start talking about generalities inside the prison, with a final segue towards the beginning of the next chapter.

It is interesting how Ian Huntley, and others, go on 24-hour suicide watch: they live in a cell with a transparent door, and a prison officer sits outside and watches the prisoner all the time! Also interesting to see that the most extreme isolation units, the perspex cells that the likes of Bronson and Maudsley inhabit, are not purposed for punishment but are simply safe living quarters for the very incontrollable men who are not able to live in proximity to any other people (letting them out of the cages involves six members of staff suited up appropriately!)

It is also interesting that prisoners in general hate seeing themselves on television: they do not crave notoriety!

On the whole I think I would have preferred not to have read this book. It is morbidly interesting, but does nothing to further my understanding of this world we live in.