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The Prison Doctor
The Prison Doctor
Dr Amanda Brown | 2019 | Biography
9
8.3 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Moving (2 more)
Inspirational
Real life
Violence, drugs, suicide. Welcome to the world of a prison doctor
The book is a real life account of a prison doctor who is treating patients in UK prisons. It tells of the violence, drugs and heart ache of the inmates and how she helps and copes with the day to day of prison life. Parts of it are truly disturbing but other parts made me smile. It is very moving and yet very readable
  
Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted
Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted
Laura Caldwell | 2017 | Biography, Crime, History & Politics
8
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
With movements like Black Lives Matter at the forefront of society right now, and multiple documentaries about wrongful convictions such as Steven Avery and The West Memphis Three out, there has never been a better time for this book to come out and be read. This topic is <i><b>so important.</i></b>

Reading about the lives of these poor, innocent human beings being treated like they’re dirt, like they’re less than dirt, is devastating. A number of these stories actually brought tears to my eyes. How this injustice goes on, I can’t fathom. In many of these stories we hear how there are alibis that prove the person wasn’t there to commit the crime, but they convict them anyway. There are confessions from other people to crimes, yet they will convict someone else. There is someone else’s DNA on a victim's body but they will commit someone whose DNA is not on the body. And possibly the worst one of them all, there are statements from VICTIMS that the person they have arrested is not the right person, yet they will still convict them. How can a legal system, that’s supposed to protect us and who we’re supposed to trust, let this happen? It makes my blood boil.

In this book, each person’s story is written by a prolific crime writer, so all of these accounts are really well written and they really bring out raw emotions in you because they’re so well presented and you can feel the exonerees pain.

Many of these people spent over a decade, if not over <b>two decades</b> of their life trapped in the walls of dirty prisons for crimes they were innocent of, such as murder, child murder, rape and GBH. The brutality of the officers arresting these people makes me sick. <b>Literal</b> torture is used on innocent people, as young as 17, to coax a <b>false confession</b> out of them, all because they want to be able to arrest someone. What makes me sicker is that these officers and the higher powers who turn(ed) a blind eye to this kind of abuse are never charged or made to own up to their brutalities AND because of the idiocy of these *insert the worst possible swear word and insults here* policemen, real child sex offenders and heartless murderers are <b>NEVER CAUGHT.</b>

This book is hopeful, but it is also heart breaking and while I could go on forever talking about the hatred and rage that this book makes me feel, but I’m going to end it with this instead.

<b><blockquote>GLORIA KILLIAN

DAVID BATES

RAY TOWLER

MICHAEL EVANS

KEN WYNIEMKO

KIRK BLOODWORTH

AUDREY EDMUNDS

ALTON LOGAN

PETER REILLY

GINNY LEFEVER

BILL DILLON

JEFF DESKOVIC

ANTOINE DAY

JERRY MILLER

JUAN RIVERA</blockquote></b>

<b>You are brave and you are strong. Thank you for sharing your stories with us and shining a light on a subject so often ignored. I hope the world does nothing but right by you from here on in. You, over anyone, deserve it.</b>

I have been inspired. I am now going to look into the UK’s own Innocence Group and see what I can do to help those 10% who are wrongly convicted and being left to rot in prison.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and W. W. Norton & Company for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.</i>
  
This Is England (2007)
This Is England (2007)
2007 | International, Drama
7
7.8 (10 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Verdict: Gritty, Hard Hitting Reality Check

Story: This is England starts as young boy Shaun (Turgoose) is struggling with the death of his father in conflict in 1983, he gets picked on at school, he doesn’t fit in, until a group of skinheads led by Woody (Gilgun) welcoming him into their circle of friends for an afternoon of trouble, while his mother Cynth (Hartley) isn’t completely happy with this group, she does see him being happy for the first time in years.
When the other leader of the group Combo (Graham) gets out of prisons, he brings a more aggressive nature to what the gang wants to be, despite Woody, just wanting it to be friends hanging out.

Thoughts on This is England

Characters – Shaun is a 12-year-old boy that has suffered with the loss of his own father’s death in the Falklands, he gets bullied by the other school kids and has always just been left feeling alone in the world. The only people that let him in are Woody and the gang of skin heads who just want to hang out and soon gets drawn into a darker side by the more aggressive leaders of the gang. Combo is the older leader of the gang that doesn’t hold back with his hatred to other races in his country, he will fight anybody who goes again his gang too, being a horrendous role model for Shaun. Cynth is the mother of Shaun, she wants to see her son enjoying his life more but is getting worried about his own life choices. Woody is the member of the skin head gang that invites Shaun into the gang, he wants to help him fight back against the bullies, by offering somebody to hang out with.
Performances – Thomas Turgoose in the leading role is fantastic as we see just how he is dealing with his own grief in all the wrong places. Stephen Graham steals the show with his hyper aggressive character, while the rest of the cast do make us feel like we are watching mates hanging out.
Story – The story here follows a 12-year-old boy that ends up joining a skinhead gang after he struggles to find a way to deal with the grief in his life from his father’s death. The story does tackle just how difficult grief could be for the children of the victims of war, with Shaun having his school friends pick on him because of his father’s death, which in todays, not the 80s wouldn’t be acceptable in anyway, with everybody being more supportive. The idea of joining the gang and just how the gang soon starts to consume his life, effecting his behaviour shows how being given the wrong lines to follow will not make life any easier. We do see how the world has changed since the 80s and how the skinhead culture should never be forced onto anybody.
Crime – The crime world we get placed into here it, involves the violent behaviour of the skinhead gangs to anybody that doesn’t fit into their profile.
Settings – The film is set in the midlands of the UK which does show the neighbours that would have been struggling in the 1980s.

Scene of the Movie – The first day out with the gang.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – 12-year-old dating an 18-year-old seems weird.
Final Thoughts – This film does show the violence being pushed onto people if they can’t deal with grief when they have nobody else in their lives.

Overall: Violent Drama.