From the drug addicts who call Amanda ‘the mother I never had’ to the women who’ve pushed back at domestic abuse, to women close to release in their 70s, who just want to stay in the place that they’ve always known, these are stories that are heartbreaking, harrowing and heart-warming. Amanda listens, prescribes and does what she can. After all, she’s their doctor.

David Berridge has spent 28 years working as a prison officer, with 22 years at Parkhurst. A tough character with a big personality and a dark sense of humour, David has had to deal with it all - serial killers and gangsters, terrorists and sex offenders, psychopaths and addicts. Inside Parkhurst is his raw, uncompromising look at what really went on behind the massive walls and menacing gates of one of Britain's highest security prisons.  

Danger. Deportation. Death. These are just some of the fates facing the inmates at Huntercombe prison. Some have fled their homeland in fear of their lives. Others are being sent to a country they left decades ago. But Dr Amanda Brown is doing all she can for each patient stuck in no-man’s land. They have little or no idea of what awaits them outside, but she treats them with kindness and respect. Whatever their crime, and whatever their future holds, she is still their doctor.

Having worked for 16 years in a high security women’s prison dealing with the likes of Rosemary West and Myra Hindley, Vanessa Frake thought she’d seen just about everything. That was until she was transferred to the notorious Wormwood Scrubs as head of security and operations. Thrust into a ‘man’s world’, her no nonsense approach and fearless attitude saw her rise through the ranks, as she engaged in daily battles of the wits with both inmates and staff.

An eye-opening, thought-provoking and mind-blowing account from a genuine prison governor of what it's really like behind bars. The Secret Prison Governor has spent decades surrounded by every type of prisoner known to man, from petty thieves and common drug dealers to crime bosses and dangerous serial killers. Since starting as a rookie, he has experienced the reality of the UK's harsh prison system and the hard challenge of ruling those within it. In his own words, the Secret Prison Governor spares no detail of prison life.

The library is a sanctuary for some, a place for warmth for others and, on many occasions, an internet café. It's not always the books that bring us together. That's why you might be surprised to hear that I've been a witness to an attempted murder, a target for a drugs gang and the last hope for people in desperate poverty. The quirks of library life. But what I didn't expect was for a simple part-time job to become a passionate battle for survival, both for me and for the library.

It was no surprise that Angela Williams went to jail. A traumatic, violent upbringing saw to that. But after serving a short sentence for theft as a teenager, she worked hard to break the cycle. Thirteen years later Angela was studying, teaching, providing a stable home for her son, and finally feeling like she'd got her life together. Then she got hit by a postie bike. Police realised that Angela still had 10 months to go on the prison sentence she'd thought was in her distant past. However, Angela was a different prisoner the second time around.

The Locked Ward is an extraordinary memoir that sets out to reveal the true story of life in a psychiatric ward - the fear, the violence and despair, and also the care and the compassion. Recounting the stories of the patients he worked with, and those of the friends he made on the ward, O'Donnell provides a detailed account of day-to-day life behind the doors of the most feared and stigmatised environment in healthcare.

Horrifying, heartbreaking and eye-opening, these are the stories, the patients and the cases that have characterised a career spent behind bars. The no-holds-barred memoirs of a GP who went from working at a quiet suburban practice to treating the country’s most dangerous criminals - first in young offenders’ institutions, then at the notorious Wormwood Scrubs and finally at Europe’s largest women-only prison in Europe, Bronzefield.

Anti-Social is the diary of a council worker whose job is to keep his community happy, or at least away from each other’s throats. That’s hard enough at the best of times but when government cuts mean that hospitals, social services and police are all at breaking point, the possibility of complete chaos is never far away. This is an urgent, timely but, most of all, hysterically funny true story of a life spent working with the people society wants to forget and the problems that nobody else can resolve.

Meet Doctor Ben MacFarlane - a very modern flying doctor. His job is get on a plane and bring patients home after holiday disasters, gap year crises, embarrassing incidents on business trips and all the other things that can go wrong when we head overseas. Holiday SOS is his extraordinary story. It’s a unique medical memoir of the people he helps - and a year in the life of one of the world’s most frequent flyers! 

From sex-crazed fiends to cold-eyed professional assassins, only those convicted of the most terrible murders are told they will die behind bars. This audiobook tells the stories of those most depraved killers whose crimes outraged society and demanded the harshest penalty available to a British court.

Where can a tin of tuna buy you clean clothes? Which British education system struggles with 50 percent illiteracy? Where do teetotal Muslims attend AA meetings? Where is it easier to get 'spice' than paracetamol? Welcome to Her Majesty's Prison Service, a creaking and surreal world that has been left to rot for decades in the shadows of polite society. Like most people, documentary-maker Chris Atkins didn't spend much time thinking about prisons. But after becoming embroiled in a dodgy scheme to fund his latest film, he was sent down for five years.

Neil ‘Sam’ Samworth worked as a prison officer for 12 years, many of them in HMP Manchester, more commonly known as Strangeways. It’s bad enough for the staff - but what is it really like to be banged up in a category A prison with some of the country’s most dangerous offenders? In this shocking pause-resister, Sam tracks down some of Strangeways' 'ex customers' and recounts their experiences in gripping detail. 

Penguin presents the audio edition of Prison: A Survival Guide, written by Carl Cattermole. Read by Carl Cattermole, Darcey Hartley, Julia Howard, Elliot Murawski, Lisa Selby and Adam Gallagher. The cult guide to UK prisons by Carl Cattermole - now fully updated and featuring contributions from female and LGBTQI prisoners, as well as from family on the outside.