PositiveThe Spectator (UK)...a razor-sharp and darkly funny memoir that should be mandatory reading for justice ministers, ministry officials, Her Majesty’s inspectors, and anyone at all interested in the anarchy that is the UK prisons system. Behind bars, Atkins seems to have kept his sanity by turning an imaginary camera on himself ... Prison is not the Oxford-educated filmmaker’s natural habitat. But there are some funny and touching moments ... Does prison work? In a very narrow sense, just about. Despite what some campaigners claim, there is probably a link between the generally lower levels of crime today and the fact that the UK prison population has risen by 69 percent over the past 30 years. One gathers, in this case, that Atkins will not be scamming the taxman again anytime soon. Yet it is hard to avoid two conclusions when reading his lurid account of prison life. That, if a society is judged by how it treats criminals, we can hardly call ourselves civilized — and that the organization which manages this national scandal, the Ministry of Justice, isn’t up to the job.
