Chris Atkins was working as documentary film maker at a time when tax breaks were easily available for those in the British film industry. Struggling to get his new film off the ground he signed up to a funding scheme which he knew was a bit shady. After a while the fund was investigated and the parties involved were taken to court. I got the impression that Chris thought he would be relatively ok, but the judge sentenced him to 5 years, of which he would serve 2 and half behind bars. This book is an account of his time at Wandsworth before later being moved to an open prison. In it he describes how massive under-funding has lead to prisons barely being able to function. As a result, education and reform of prisoners are non existant. To top it off the prisons are full of drugs and the facilities are falling apart. It's hardly surprising we have such a high re-offending rate in the UK.

The book was a great insight into a lot of the issues that the general public don't see. It is a damning indictment of how successive government justice ministers have failed to even scratch the surface of the problem and the same failings are still present. After reading the book I did a bit more research and was unsurprised to learn that prisons in the UK are run by private companies for profit. How anyone can logically justify running medical care, education, and justice for profit has always been beyond my comprehension but I guess greed is more important than humanity.

I'm sure the author wouldn't really care, but by the end of the book I really didn't like him. He rails against a prison system that he proudly acknowledges he gamed to make his life inside easier. I understand why he did it, and I admit I would do the same if I were in his situation, but it still doesn't quite sit right with me. He might have been wiser to dial down his tone considering some of the perks he got as a 'white-collar' criminal. ( )

This was certainly darkly funny, but it was not shocking. I found it an interesting account of a white-collar criminal's eight months in a fairly low-key, but incompetently managed British prison. As a documentarian by trade, he spends the time documenting problems in the prison system. He also becomes a "Listener," who listens to other prisoners' problems, all around the prison. This gives him a broader perspective than most single prisoners could have.

Many of the author's complaints were for relatively small—though certainly frustrating—bureaucratic snafus. But other issues are certainly very serious, especially the mental health problems in prison. Interestingly, he has negotiates the setting well, and has few if any serious conflicts with other prisoners or prison officials.

> 'I don't suppose you'd be interested in a workshop on dry lining?' he asks. 'YES!' I reply, a bit too forcefully. 'Do you know what dry lining is?' I yelp, 'Yes!' again, fearing that ignorance will bar me from the course. 'Excellent, I won't have to waste time explaining it. I'll put you on the list.' He shuffles away, and I instinctively reach to my pocket for my iPhone to google 'dry lining'. This is a habit I really need to get out of. I don't even have any pockets.

> Whatever crime people had been convicted of, the real motive was usually greed. My outside friends were often surprised to learn that the most prevalent magazine in prison was GQ . It was far more popular than sporting or pornographic publications, as it played directly to the inmates' capitalist lust.

> Foley owes much of this canteen to his new cellmate, who is in turn heavily indebted around the wing. News of their insolvency quickly spreads, and a complex network of prison debt begins to unravel. It reminds me of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, where the contagion from toxic loans swiftly infected the entire economy.

> Film4 keeps showing The Shawshank Redemption . Gary and I watch it every time it's on, and play our favourite game of comparing the on-screen facilities to those in Wandsworth. 'They've got four washing machines in their laundry,' says Gary. 'Lucky fuckers.' 'I know Tim Robbins just got raped in the shower,' I note, 'but they do at least have decent water pressure.'

> The longer I'm here, the faster reality slips past. Maybe my brain is slowing down, like a hibernating mouse, reducing all higher cognitive processes for survival. I've stopped missing most of my middle-class trappings. I no longer crave alcohol or nicotine, I actually like the taste of instant coffee, and I don't find the hard bed uncomfortable. I am now an integral part of the Wandsworth ecosystem

> One of his few jobs is counting everyone at night, which he undertakes in a highly unconventional manner. He simply goes up to each door and asks, 'How many in here?' This trusting approach could easily enable a prisoner to escape, as long as their padmate stayed behind to vouch for their presence. His naïve questioning provokes frequent unhelpful answers, including 'none', 'three and a half' and 'four hundred and thirty-five'. These wisecracks usually bugger up the hunchback's count, and he has to start again from the beginning.

> I'm often asked, 'Has anyone you sat with ever killed themselves?' to which the painful answer is 'I don't know. Probably.' A lot of my Listener contacts had strong suicidal tendencies, and they were in a place almost structurally designed to make them take their own lives, so I think it's more than likely.

> The screw stomps back out, and the lockdown continues all day. We watch the evening news, but there's no mention of a Wandsworth breakout. Days later, I ask Officer O'Reilly where they found the missing prisoner. He checks that he won't be overheard, and whispers, 'In his own fucking cell.' … Every time I thought that OMU had reached the pinnacle of utter fuckwittery, it immediately exceeded itself.

> the Listening work has definitely changed me for the better. I now try to listen and understand more, and condemn a little less. The world is also less judgemental of me than I feared; lots of people have been very kind and forgiving about my predicament. ( )