This rreview is written with thanks to HarperElement for my copy of Inside Job: Treating Murderers And Sex Offenders – My Life As A Prison Psychologist via Netgalley.

Blurb:

And here I am. Totally alone in a cell with a convicted sex offender who is free to do what he wants. There is no officer. No handcuffs. No radio. Only the man across the desk and me. He looks more petrified than I do.

HMP Graymoor. One of the UK’s most notorious prisons. Home to nearly 800 murderers, rapists and child molesters.

Reporting for her first shift inside is Rebecca: twenty-two, newly graduated – and about to sit down with some of the country’s most dangerous criminals.

In this gripping, hard-hitting memoir, forensic psychologist Dr Rebecca Myers revisits her time in the ‘Hot Seat’ with Graymoor’s infamous inmates – who might not be as different to us as we think.

This is as close as we can get to knowing what really goes on inside the damaged minds behinds bars.

Review:

I’m fascinated by life in prisons and intrigued by their ability to rehabilitate (or not) and support prisoners. Inside Job: Treating Murderers And Sex Offenders – My Life As A Prison Psychologist really feeds my curiosity. It focuses on the author’s early days as a psychologist in the 1990s and 2000s when she is relatively young. Her account and reflection on her work is incredibly interesting and I learnt a lot from the book as well as being fully engaged from beginning to end. 

As suggested by the title, the author describes her experience of working with sex offenders and this means that some of the prisoners’ crimes, particularly rape and murder, are described in significant detail. This makes some parts of the book quite difficult to read and it may not be for everyone, but it does serve a purpose in that it helps to provide context for the work and allows us to see the circumstances which brought each prisoner to prison and, more specifically, the Sex Offender Treatment Programme. 

Dr Myers’ account is very reflective as she applies some of the psychological theories she uses in the group to her own life. I found this really insightful and it also helped me think about my own life. 

The book ends with an epilogue, which explains, as far as the author is able, what happened to the people who are featured. I found this interesting, but as her career has clearly developed further, I would have liked to know a little more about what she is doing now. 

Inside Job: Treating Murderers And Sex Offenders – My Life As A Prison Psychologist is available from Amazon.