A review from Catholic Pic, news from around the Archdiocese of Liverpool, on a new book by Manx resident Brendan O’Friel:
For Brendan O’Friel, the idea for the book he has written about prisons in this country had been gestating for quite some time. For three decades, to be precise. ‘The book started with a lot of people telling me after the Strangeways riot, “You’ve got to write your account of what happened”,’ reflects the man who was governor of Strangeways Prison in Manchester when a 25-day riot and rooftop protest took place there in April 1990…
The end result is his book, Prison Governor’s Journal, which is now available, offering his account of the prison service between 1945 and 1995 and a reflection on its current state. ‘With the pandemic you could see what it was going to do to both staff and prisoners,’ remarks Brendan, now 80. ‘The prison service has been getting into an increasing mess through the last 10 years. They’d made a bit of progress prior to that but from 2010 onwards, the government cut the funding, and didn’t cut the numbers so things just went downhill.’
Reflections on life as a prison governor – By Simon Hart
It does not appear to be currently available from Amazon.