IN THE 20 YEARS I'VE been writing reviews on crime and punishment and in the 25 I've served as a prisoner, this is the first time I have ever come across anything from the hand of a prison officer.

I'm not sure whether this says more about their literary prowess (or lack of it), or the restraints under which they work. At any rate, Ronnie Thompson has chosen to publish this uncompromisingly forthright memoir pseudonymously, leaving me to muse over his identity and the possible repercussions of an archly critical appraisal should he turn out to be the man who unlocks my cell door every morning or even the fellow in the office downstairs about to compile my parole papers.

But to hell with that. I'm here to do my job, just like the author. If he decides to enter the public arena in such an outspoken manner (and Screwed will create controversy) then he will have to live with the consequences on both sides of the prison gate. That said, whether you agree with his take on the prison service or not, his views cannot be ignored.

First, though, a warning. Thompson does not deal in euphemisms. We all remember the kerfuffle when James Kelman won the Booker with How Late It Was, How Late. His 5,000-plus permutations of the F-word pale beside Thompson's obscene vocabulary. Alas for middle-class sensibilities, this is what prison amounts to. He calls a spade a spade in the meanest Anglo- Saxon terms. If you like your penology served up with footnotes, better consult the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice or the Law Quarterly Review. What we have here is plain-speaking gospel according to Ronnie, lifted straight from the landings he pounds.

Like his identity, the exact location of those landings remains open to speculation. The fictitious HMP Romwell of The Well (where for the most part this volume is set) could be any number of metropolitan prisons in the South of England. But, after extensive discussions with my cellmate AJ (who also has 19 years under his belt) I'm prepared to stick my neck out. We believe Romwell is Colonel Jebb's New Model Prison of 1841, more commonly known as Pentonville or the Ville. And that's down to much more than informed guesswork.

“I was well excited. It seemed awesome,” the wide-eyed Thompson enthuses as he tries on his smart new uniform the night before he's due to report for duty. It doesn't take long for the novelty to wear off. Within a month the harsh reality of the place - as well as the stench - begins to take its toll on young Ronnie, sending him scurrying in the direction of the one place your reviewer has never been able to penetrate, viz The Officers Club, “a dark []and smoky bar with a pool table, Sky Sports, jam-packed with loads of screws ordering pints with large brandies between shifts.”

You get the picture. Thompson, you see, is a proper Jack the Lad. He reads Zoo and Nuts. He's 27 and drinks Red Bull and double vodka. He's cocky, chauvinistic and belligerent. Which makes it all the more infuriating for me to admit that so much of what he sees and comments upon is, to use his turn of phrase, “bang on the nail”.

Prisoners are given many privileges, Thompson observes, “but no matter how much you conceded to most of these scroats, it's never enough”. Constructive or purposeful activity (ostensibly the reason for allowing men out of their cells during the day) means “cons kicking the fuck out of each other, officers getting attacked, and smack and crack being dealt”. I have to agree with him that: “this daily scenario, dangerous for screws and cons alike, is just an ill-considered exercise carried out merely to satisfy the requirements of prison audits.”

Then there's the problem, so far as Thompson is concerned, of union membership. We've all heard of the POA (Prison Officers Association). Most screws feel they must join. But what of the “Black POA” and “Respect” (nothing to do with George Galloway) specifically for minorities? Poor Ronnie can't even wear his St George's Cross tie pin without offending some faction or other. What would happen, he demands to know, were he to initiate a white prison officers' union?

Racism, then: institutional or otherwise. Add to that gubernatorial incompetence and inconsistency, hard drugs, violence, suicide, underfunding, overcrowding ... Screwed is a veritable snake pit of the unmentionable and seemingly unsolvable problems of our age.

My main concern is that Thompson tries to be everything to every man, never better illustrated than when our Ron finds himself bang in the middle of a riot, employed as the control and restraint/pain compliance specialist member of the Prison Service's crack Tornado squad, at exactly the same time as he's ordered to negotiate quietly and pragmatically with a hundred or so recalcitrants on a sit-down protest in a neighbouring exercise yard. Give him credit, though. He's big enough to admit the system's failings. “People who say that officers have control of a prison and that it always works well are lying. When there is large scale indiscipline you are well and truly fucked.”

It's plain and simple as that. This is neither a pleasant nor an easy book to read. It is, though, of the utmost importance to anyone who wants to really understand what life is like at penal ground zero. There are many authentic accounts of prison from my side of the cell door. Ronnie Thompson's vitriolic narrative is a brave attempt to redress the balance from the other.

Screwed by Ronnie Thompson
Headline, £16.99; 320pp

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