A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner - Chris Atkins

Category: Adults, Autobiography & Biographies, True Crime
Language: English
Keywords: HMP Wandsworth Murder And Mutiny Showers And Slips Suicide And Sellotape

Written by Chris Atkins
Read by Chris Atkins
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 32 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
Release date: 02-06-20
Publisher: Audible Studios

A shocking and darkly funny account of the reality of Britain’s prisons.

Where can a tin of tuna buy you clean clothes? Which British education system struggles with 50 percent illiteracy? Where do teetotal Muslims attend AA meetings? Where is it easier to get ’spice’ than paracetamol? Where does self-harm barely raise an eyebrow?

Welcome to Her Majesty’s Prison Service, a creaking and surreal world that has been left to rot for decades in the shadows of polite society. Like most people, documentary-maker Chris Atkins didn’t spend much time thinking about prisons. But after becoming embroiled in a dodgy scheme to fund his latest film, he was sent down for five years.
His new home would be HMP Wandsworth, one of the oldest, largest and most dysfunctional prisons in Europe.

Horrifying, moving and darkly funny, this is the unvarnished depiction of what he found. With a cast of characters ranging from wily drug dealers to corrupt screws to senior officials bent on endless (and fruitless) reform, this is the reality behind the locked gates. Full of incredible and hilarious stories, A Bit of a Stretch reveals the true scale of our prison crisis and why it is costing us all.

Keywords for this book? I’ll use a few chapter headings.