Product Description

In November 1999, at Cambridge Crown Court, Ruth Wyner and her co-defendant John Brock were found guilty under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Their "crime", as charity workers devoted to funning the Wintercomfort hostel for Cambridge's homeless population, was in the eyes of the police to have made insufficient efforts to prevent drug dealing on the premises. Such injustice was astonishing enough, but an even greater shock was the sentence: five years, no less, and the following day Ruth Wyner found herself in Holloway Prison. "From the Inside" is Ruth Wyner's account of her time in a women's prison, first at Holloway and then at Highpoint Prison in Norfolk. She had to serve seven months before the appeal hearing that quashed her sentence - though not her conviction - by which time the "Cambridge Two" campaign had attracted high-profile support from Joan Baez to Tom Stoppard and Jo Brand. It is not only the first full account in years of what life is like in one of Britain's women's prisons - and therefore of sociological interest; it is also the frank and moving story of how one woman - even with the benefits of a loving family, education and mental stability denied to her infinitely more vulnerable fellow inmates - struggled to cope with the unhealthy, dehumanising, incessantly noisy and nerve-jangling daily life of a women's jail.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #434916 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

A raw account of life in prison
There aren't many straight-forward insiders' published accounts of life in a modern English prison, particularly women's prisons. Prison walls shut most of us out as much as they shut their inmates in. Those of us who haven't had the misfortune to experience it ourselves should therefore read with care and interest the accounts of those who have. This book tells a very personal story, particularly of the loss of control, uncertainty and isolation that a prisoner can feel in the early days of imprisonment. Ruth Wyner presents an unnerving account of what it really feels like to feel very powerless and of the ways different women adapt in this environment. One reviewer criticises it for being judgemental: but if it was devoid of comment and opinion, it would have been a dry read! You don't have to agree with the analysis to agree that it provides plenty of food for thought, especially as the prison population soars.

The pain of deprivation
Ruth Wyner's account of her trial and subsequentimprisonment is an honest and compassionate portrait of the catastrophe of incarceration in a women's prison of the present day. She brings to life the fear, anger and bullying that exists for both staff and inmates, and graphically describes the inhumanity and unfairness of our prison system.

It is also a tale of courage and strength, without self-pity, for herself, her family, and her fellow prisoners. An account of licenced madness. A very important book, and a possible lever in the struggle to reform an archaic and sadistic penal process.

how to survive unjust imprisonment
Ruth Wyner has dedicated her working life to helping the homeless. Her determination to stand up for their rights lead to confrontation with the authorities, arrest, and conviction on a clause in an outdated bill whose usefulness is now being questioned by the Home Office.

This book brilliantly depicts the personal journey of someone moving from outrage and disbelief about her predicament, to the realisation that many of the other prison inmates were also victims of a dysfunctional system of justice and that the best way out of her situation was to work with the system rather than confront it.

The descriptions of prison life are vivid and compelling and the book builds up to an exciting climax as the date for the appeal approaches and Wyner faces up to the possibility of either having a long prison term confirmed or - as it turned out - early release.