REVIEW

Review - AUSTRALIA'S MOST MURDEROUS PRISON: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail, James Phelps

Reviewed By
Karen Chisholm

A book where the title is utterly unambiguous, AUSTRALIA'S MOST MURDEROUS PRISON is about Goulburn Jail. It refers to events in the jail as much as many of it's inmates crimes. It is also provides a brief history of the construction, background and management of the jail, where the worst of NSW inmates invariably end up.

Written in a light style that initially might seem almost irreverent, it works incredibly well when it comes to relating many of the events that occur within the jail, and in particular when discussing the "activities" of some of the more notorious prisoners held within. 

At no stage does Phelps attempt to justify many of the extreme measures taken within the jail, rather he draws a series of quite graphic pictures of the worst of events - the race wars, the inmate on inmate violence (physical and sexual) and the consequences of riots from prisoner conditions through to the careers of jail wardens. This allows the reader to draw their own conclusions about the racial clustering and the construction and running of the notorious Supermax area.

Many true crime books tend to concentrate on a particular case, or connected cases and the events leading up to trial / verdict, but AUSTRALIA'S MOST MURDEROUS PRISON is looking mostly at the incarceration of offenders, particularly those that end up in the end of the line jail at Goulburn. The concentration on particular offenders is not so much about what they have done, but rather what jail time is doing to them, how they ended up in Goulburn and how they cope with it. 

Because this is a book about a jail it jumps around from offenders, to in jail offence, from riot to warden's viewpoint, from anecdotes to analysis. AUSTRALIA'S MOST MURDEROUS PRISON is a fascinating book, written in a very readable style.

BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
Author
ISBN
9780857987495
Year of Publication
BLURB

BEHIND THE WALLS OF GOULBURN JAIL

An unprecedented spate of murders in the 1990s – seven in just three years – earned Goulburn Jail the ominous name of ‘The Killing Fields'. Inmates who were sentenced or transferred to the 130-year-old towering sandstone menace declared they had been given a death sentence. 

Gang alliances, power plays, contracted hits, the ice trade, the colour of your skin – even mistaken identity – any number of things could seal your fate. 

The worst race war in the history of Australian prisons saw several groups – Aboriginal, Lebanese, Asian, Islander and Anglo – wage a vicious and uncontrollable battle for power. Every day there were stabbings. Every day there were bashings. And then there was murder 

A controversial policy known as ‘racial clustering' might have put an end to the Killing Fields, but soon something far scarier would arise, something called Supermax . . . Within the stark white walls, clinical halls and solitary confinement, it is where Australia's most evil men are locked away. It is home to serial killer Ivan Milat; the ‘Terror Five', militants who plotted attacks across Sydney in 2005; Brothers 4 Life founder Bassam Hamzy and gang rapist Bilal Skaf, to name a few.

Murderers, terrorists, serial killers, gangsters and rapists – soon you will meet them all inside Australia's most murderous prison.

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