Alex South spent ten years as a young woman working as a prison officer at some of the country’s most notorious men’s prisons. From her very first shift at the age of 22, Alex was thrown into a harsh environment with men who had done hideous things. It should have been, and sometimes was, a terrifying way to make a living.
She had to find deep reserves of courage and resilience. But she also found she had a rare skill to get inmates to talk to her and share their vulnerabilities and struggles. She discovered that prisons can be places of hope, humour and strength – as well as places of darkness.
After Alex resigned from the prison service in 2020, she won first place in the Beechmore Life Writing Competition. She is a hugely gifted writer. And she is one with a powerful and important story to tell.
Describing inmates ‘ experiences, as well as her own, Alex found writing about her prison experiences both cathartic and freeing. When her book was picked up by a literary agent, it was fought over by eight publishers. That will surprise no-one who reads it. Alex ‘ s memoir – Behind These Doors – is shocking, empathetic and completely gripping.
Alex takes us behind the gates and through security into prison cells, shared kitchens, the prison library and into the ‘ seg ‘ (the segregation unit). She shines a light on what it is like to work as a prison officer in a service fraught with suffering and close to breaking point. She reveals a world hidden from almost all of us. It’ s a world whose inhabitants – whether inmates or prison staff – deserve to be heard.
Alex ‘ s ten-year shift in the HM Prison Service coincided with a steep fall in real-terms funding as a result of successive government cuts. She knows there ‘ s little public sympathy for prisoners and that politicians are rarely thanked for making prisons better, or safer or more effective. But Alex believes we should all care, or at least understand, the reality of prison life today.
