Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #275548 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Synopsis
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.

Customer Reviews

An interesting read, but slightly self-pitying
I remember the case of the "Cambridge Two" when it was mentioned in the press a few years back. I followed the story through reading various articles featured in The Guardian, and when I heard Ruth Wyner had written a book about her experiences of prison life I decided to buy it.

Although the vast majority of the book was an interesting read, there were times when Wyner was incredibly self-absorbed and self-pitying with only the odd mention of John Brock (her co-defendant) and the plight he and his family must have been going through. I sympathise to an extent what happened to Wyner and Brock in so far as the custodial sentence was completely inappropriate and unjustified in this instance. However, I suspect that Wyner was slightly more knowledgeable about the drug use going on at Wintercomfort shelter than she lets on in the book.

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.

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.