Prison Book: A Prison Diary by Jeffrey Archer

A Prison Diary by Jeffrey Archer is about prison in the UK. Jeffrey Archer was a bestselling novelist and British Lord. He was convicted of perjury and sentenced to four years in prison. This is volume one in a series of 3 books recounting his time in British prisons, starting with BMP Belmarsh, a notorious, maximum security lockup. This first of three was written while he was incarcerated at Belmarsh.

The book describes daily life in British lockup and explains the daily routine as well as the unexpected moments he experienced while at Belmarsh.

Jeffrey Archer is critical of the British prison system and questions many different policies, including sending small time criminals and short-term offenders to a high-security prison like Belmarsh, explaining that it makes a bad situation worse.

While I would hardly describe this book as excellent, it was extremely interesting to someone who almost exclusively reads books about the American prison system. There are some blaring differences and some surprising similarities. It is definitely worth a read, along with the other two books in the series, Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 and Heaven: A Prison Diary Volume 3

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