A Good Man Inside: Diary of a White Collar Prisoner

2014 | Biography

A Good Man Inside is the diary of one man's experiences of his time in prison written over 300 days as he reels from and makes sense of being under lock and key. A white collar criminal he sees himself as someone who should not really be in prison - as 'a good man' for whom his incarceration is doubly punitive, not practically necessary or achieving much other than the degradation and powerlessness of being in prison. But as time passes he accepts his fate and settles down to the regime, helping others and using the experience to best advantage. The book takes the reader through the day-to-day minutiae of prison life, prison conditions and the strange language of prisoner interchanges, hygiene, mental health and prison food. It emphasises the different worlds of captors and captured and deals with the preoccupations of someone who has known better times and wishes to get back to what is left of his life and family and start all over again. Captures the essence of the sudden incarceration of a previously respectable white collar offender whose reputation and comfortable life have been turned upside down.

Not only from self-interest, does he try to explain the futility of locking up people like himself making the book of interest to prison reformers as well as general readers. Set out as a diary and very easy to read. Illustrated by the author. Humorous, sometimes dark, critical, insightful and of particular interest to prison reformers.

Will Phillips (Author)