Shaun Attwood's HARD TIME

This book is an account of the 26 months Shaun Attwood spent in the jail system with the highest rate of death in America. The jail is in Phoenix, Arizona, and run by the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It begins with a SWAT team knocking Shaun’s door down, and his arrest for heading an organisation that threw raves and distributed club drugs. Initially, Shaun goes into shock as he’s submerged into a nightmarish world of gang violence, insect-infested cells and food unfit for animals. But with the love and support of his family and fiancée, Claudia, he slowly adapts.

Other prisoners Shaun meets on his journey tell their stories. His large and fearless friend since childhood, Wild Man, pops up all over the place with his unique brand of chaos. Shaun’s situation devastates his loved ones, and his mother has a nervous breakdown. The prosecutor and Detective Reid are out to get Shaun a life sentence, and the legal developments cause many emotional ups and downs.

Over time, Shaun tries to avoid getting smashed by forming various alliances, including with the Italian Mafia and the independent tough guy, Joe. Shaun increasingly uses jail time for learning and introspection. He takes up yoga, and ponders the big questions in philosophy. The letters he writes home, which make his family both laugh and cry, tell such a graphic tale that his parents encourage him to write more in order to document his incarceration.

Towards the end of his stay and with the help of his family, he starts the blog, Jon’s Jail Journal, to expose the conditions and human rights violations. The book ends with his family flying over from England for a sentencing hearing that has everyone on the verge of mental collapse.

Shaun’s jail memoir is slated for September-October 2010 publication in the UK.

Shaun’s award-nominated blog, jonsjailjournal.com, big in the U.S, has given a great many number of prisoners a voice, whose stories otherwise would have remained unheard. Mentored by Koestler, and publicly speaking in schools and prisons, this inspiring Widnesian continues to head a major movement.