Jeffrey Archer was sentenced to four years' imprisonment at 12.07pm on Thursday 19th July 2001. Within six hours, Prisoner FF8282, as he is now known, was on suicide watch in the medical wing of Belmarsh top security prison in south London. This, he discovered, is standard procedure for first-time offenders on their first night in jail. By 6.00am the next morning, Archer had resolved to write a daily diary of everything he experienced while incarcerated, because "I have a feeling that being allowed to write in this hellhole may turn out to be the one salvation that will keep me sane". Jeffrey Archer's diary of his first three weeks imprisonment is a raw account of life in a top-security jail in Britain. It is also an indictment of the British penal system. The tales of his fellow inmates - many of whom are in for life - are often moving stories of hopelessness. But there are those, too, who, no matter what their previous histories, attempt to live their prison lives with dignity and integrity. Returning favours, Archer comments, is far more commonplace in prison than outside.
The diary should be of interest to anyone concerned with the improvement of our penal system, whether they are concerned citizens, politicians or workers in the prison service.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"There is a child of seventeen in the cell below me who has been charged with shoplifting - his first offence, not even convicted - and he is being locked up for eighteen and a half hours, unable to speak to anyone: This Great Britain in the 21st century, not Turkey, not Nigeria, not Kosovo, but Britain. This same young man will now be spending at least a fortnight with murderers, rapists, burgiars and drug addicts. Are these the best tutors he can learn from?" Monday 23 July 2001
Reihe
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Maße
Höhe: 240 mm
Breite: 158 mm
Dicke: 26 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-4050-2094-7 (9781405020947)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Jeffrey Archer has not received an advance for the publication of his Prison Diary. He has also instructed his publishers, Macmillan, to pay the money he would have received from newspaper serialisation directly to charities concerned with drug rehabilitation and victim support.