When Don Osborne went to Pentridge in 1970, he found a nineteenth-century penal establishment in full working order. It held about 1200 inmates, most of them cooped up in tiny stone cells that sweltered in summer and froze in winter. Some had no sewerage or electric light.

Assigned to teach in the high-security section of the prison, Don worked in the chapel, which doubled as a classroom during the week. There, he saw the terrible effects of the violence that permeated H Division, the prison’s punishment section. He found himself acting as confidant and counsellor to some of the best-known criminals of this era, and to others who’d become notorious later, after H Division had worked its magic on them.

This book offers an insider’s reflections on how the prison emerged as it did, and is supplemented by a stunning pictorial section. It focuses especially on the rebellious 1970s, when the military ‘disciplines’ of H Division began to give way in the face of prisoner resistance and public criticism. Don writes of the people and events that shaped Pentridge’s history and etched it into the memories of the city that was its reluctant host.

Author

Don Osborne

Don Osborne was raised in Preston in the shadows of the mighty Pentridge Prison. He trained as a teacher at Melbourne Teacher’s College and taught for 30 years, including time in the early 1970s as an Education Officer at Pentridge Prison. A lifetime student of crime, he resides at Teesdale in country Victoria.

Country of Origin
Review Review - Pentridge: Behind the Bluestone Walls, Don Osborne
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Blog #amreading Pentridge: Behind the Bluestone Walls, Don Osborne
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
ISBN
9781760068547
Year of Publication
Publisher
Review Review - Pentridge: Behind the Bluestone Walls, Don Osborne
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Blog #amreading Pentridge: Behind the Bluestone Walls, Don Osborne
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Add new comment

This is a book review site, with no relationship whatsoever with any of the authors mentioned here.

We do not provide a method for you to contact authors for any reason and comments of this nature are automatically deleted.

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.