Book Review: Prison: A Survival Guide
| Author | Philippa Tomczak |
| Date | 01 October 2020 |
| Published date | 01 October 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663919898796 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Book Reviews
CARL CATTERMOLE, Prison: A Survival Guide. London: Ebury, 2019, pp. 208,
ISBN 9781529103496, £8.99 (pbk).
Your mind is as sparse as the cell you’re locked in. [ ...] That place will push you as low as
you can go so, if you’re someone who can go low, expect to go lower. The depression can be
contagious. Hard-as-nails geezers respond by taking it out on others, self-harmers cut up
their arms, drug users are expected to stay clean, but who knows how they’re meant to, and
previously OK people turn to all of the above because very little else is on offer
—Cattermole (2019: 71)
‘Prison: A Survival Guide’ engages with and explains the oft-overlooked fact that
surviving criminal justice detention is not a given. England and Wales’ prisons are now
less safe than at any point in recorded history – with more self-harm and assaults than
ever before (Prison Reform Trust, 2019). In 2016, record suicide numbers harmed
prisoners, staff, bereaved families and communities, draining approximately £385 million
from public funds (Tomczak, 2018). Record levels of self-harm were seen concurrently
in 2017, 2018 and 2019 (MoJ, 2019). To quote Cattermole (2019: 79): ‘the amount of
people in prison with major and minor mental disabilities would be a scandal in a
civilised country’. Deaths in or following police custody recently hit their highe st figure
in 10 years (IOPC, 2018). Less is known about court detention but in 2017, Rafal
Sochacki died of severe heatstroke at Westminster Magistrates court, having spent over
5 hours in unventilated cells on one of London’s hottest days. Very limited academic
attention has been given to the ‘sweatboxes’ comprising tiny coffin-esque cubicles that
are routinely used for detention transport (Jewkes, 2012). Cattermole explains (2019: 6)
‘you’ll look at the passing world of freedom through windows that are blacked out so the
public needn’t see a ne’er-do-well like yourself’.
Amidst this context of stigma, death and despair, Cattermole’s book valuably and
accessibly illustrates strategies for surviving the whole police-court-prison system of
criminal justice detention, although prison forms his focus. Prisoner handbooks are not a
new phenomenon (Yardley and Wilson, 2013), but Ca ttermole’s is distinctive in its
relative comprehensiveness about the system and those within it: attention to equality
and diversity issues; consideration of complaints mechanisms; and cultivation of a
collective, communitarian perspective around institutions of division and segregation.
Being a scholar primarily, I would have appreciated references to support the book’s
Social & Legal Studies
2020, Vol. 29(5) 745–761
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663919898796
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