Book Review: Prison Governor's Journal
| Author | Mike Guilfoyle |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/02645505221082837 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
Prison Governor’s Journal
Brendon O’Friel; 2021, pp 256; £17.99; pbk
ISBN: 9781526208477
Reviewed by: Dr Hannah GrahamMike Guilfoyle, Magistrate and
Retired Member of Napo.
One of the striking features of Brendan O’Friel’s eminently readable and very
modestly written memoir of his thirty-three years in the prison service is the calmly
understated manner of its publication. Not the six-way auction from publishers for
the “unflinching”memoir of another former prison governor which captured
tabloid headlines in 2021.
*
But a self-published prison journal written with the
calm detachment of twenty years in retirement, prompted in part by an evident
concern for the wellbeing of prisoners experiencing the harmful impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic, and a keen desire to impart his insightful understanding of
several decades at the coalface when he was responsible for running eight prison
establishments after his early experiences in the Approved School sector.
Most notably he ran HMP Strangeways (now HMP Manchester) twice –and
recounts his role as governor during the tumultuous riot of 1990 which culminated
in the landmark Woolf report. His measured account of the antecedent history of
the riot, the riot itself and its aftermath occupies pages 143-183, and does not
eschew from acknowledging some of the systemic failures uncovered by the
Woolf report or baulk at recognising the lasting impact on prison staff and ’the
scars –mental and physical –of what took place remained with many staff for the
rest of their lives’whilst ’prisoners suffered immensely as the lost prison places at
Strangeways resulted in prisoners being dispersed across the country, which
made family contact that much harder’(p182). The book movingly includes illustra-
tions, cartoons, line drawings and verse, some of these the work of prisoners at
another penal establishment the author was responsible for, HMP Risley, as well
as a liberal sprinkling of family and official photographs.
Book reviews The Journal of Communit
y
and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
2022, Vol. 69(1) 115–118
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/02645505221082837
journals.sagepub.com/home/prb
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