A Prison Diary
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A Prison Diary is a series of three books of diaries written by Jeffrey Archer during his time in prisons following his convictions for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Each volume is named after a part of
The Divine Comedy
. The volumes become progressively longer due to his stay being longer and longer at each prison in which he was confined.
Volume 1: Belmarsh: Hell
ISBN 1-4050-2094-6 | | |
| Followed by | Wayland: Purgatory | |
|---|---|---|
This book, written under the
HMP Belmarsh
, a double A-Category high-security prison in South London. Although Archer spent less than a month there, Belmarsh is described as a real hell-hole. Despite this, many of the inmates are extremely kind to him and regale him with anecdotes, which he duly records.
One such prisoner apparently spoken of is the inspiration to one of his short stories from Cat O'Nine Tales, "It Can't Be October Already".
On the other hand, some of the information Archer learns in his three weeks at Belmarsh is extremely disturbing, and he makes great play of imagining that the then heroin addicts coming out of prison than going in. This is because of both random and compulsory checks in which the inmates have discovered cannabis does not leave the system any time soon, but heroin
is flushed out of the body in 24 hours providing large quantities of water have been consumed. They want a drug and this is the one they can obtain.
Other inmates he talked with include an experienced Listener (for the Samaritans), who had been sexually abused through much of his childhood, existing as a sex-slave, and only knew crime. The very people set up by the institutions to protect him like social workers and magistrates, judges and policemen, let him down, and also paid to abuse him. He also describes how an inmate who professed to love his books casually offered to arrange for the witness whose testimony was the main factor in Archer's conviction to be murdered in revenge. Archer learned this man was serving two life sentences for murdering a man he'd caught his wife in bed with, before raping and murdering her afterward. He comes away from the encounter very disturbed.
Volume 2: Wayland: Purgatory
Published: 2003
This book is much longer than the previous one and charts Archer's time in
BT phone-cards
. He emphasizes how ineffective prison bureaucracy is, especially how the hierarchy works or rather does not work, for example a number of personnel each claiming to be governor.
Volume 3: North Sea Camp: Heaven
Published: 2004
This details his time in
HMP Hollesley Bay
without opportunity for outside work, summarised in an epilogue.