I was half hooked and half creeped out/disgusted by this book that I still couldn't stop reading.

It certainly opened my eyes to psychology in prison.

Having visit prisoners as a nurse I get the feelings of walking around being female in a male
Prison.

To do it so young and at such a high category prison. That takes some balls.

Was worth the reading time. Thank you.

Not for the feint hearted. This is a gruesome and scary memoir of a prison psychologist. It's fascinating and a gripping read until you remind yourself that this is real, these were real crimes.

well that was an insightful yet horrific read on the SOTP rollout in prisons in the 1990s, so not for the light hearted. It doesn’t go completely into detail about the crimes committed but you get the idea what they have inflicted.

Really readable and gives great insight into why some people are sexual offenders and what a narrow path separates those who do and those who don’t. Every offender has been let down to a greater or lesser degree as a child by adults and some stories made me want to cry- but not all children who have experienced bad parenting go on to offend and Rebecca Myers’s tries to unravel why these men did and help them understand themselves.

I had to double check this with non fiction as it felt like I was reading a crime novel.

It’s an interesting insight into Rebecca’s job as a psychologist. An interesting but difficult read.

A background into a psychologists role in a prison this was interesting and dealt with some great points but lacked some depth to the details which meant you didn’t really connect with the people involved

This book is not for the faint hearted! That said the author has done an amazing job of making it easily readable and withholding most of the gruesome details of offences.

The book is a very honest account of her start as a prison psychologist and her progress through this career. It has a great balance of detail and progress. I loved the honesty about her own childhood, feelings and imposter syndrome.

I was interested to read about the research (not heavy) of the effectiveness of programmes and how they changed.

It was interesting to see the similarities and differences between staff and prisoners and to see humanity brought to the situation.

As a social worker this book spoke to me of the exchange of a bit of yourself for the work you do…this is undoubtedly true and it is good to see it openly discussed.

Inside Job is the fascinating ,and often horrifying, story of prison psychologist Dr Rebecca Myers, focussing on the first group therapy sessions she ran at HM Prison Graymouth. This particular establishment houses many offenders seen as the lowest of the low even amongst the prison community, child killers,abusers and rapists.

As a newly-qualified psychologist the 22 year-old Dr Myers finds herself in the Lion's Den and very quickly has to adapt to the macho prison culture and the wrong kind of attention on both sides of the bars in less enlightened times.

Her group consists of the worst of the worst but men ,who so they claim at least,want to rehabilitate . What follows is a fascinating story as the characters of the various offenders are revealed, including the one in total denial,the apparently genuinely remorseful and the former policeman who thinks his former career makes him somehow above the others despite his own appalling crimes. While not gratuitous the men's crimes are told in enough detail to be truly disturbing.

While all of the crimes are truly horrific it emerges that in some cases the offenders had been traumatised and seriously abused themselves and I found myself torn between compassion for them and loathing for the awful and unforgivable things they had done to totally innocent and vulnerable people.
A fascinating book that in my case at least I suspect had the opposite effect to that Dr Myers was aiming for. I finished it thinking that no-one who commits the kind of crimes her group have should be considered for release .....ever.

A book that makes you think hard is always a good thing and this one certainly does that. It's far from an easy read , please be very aware of it's content and if you think you'll be upset in any way don't buy it.
If you can handle the content it's a well-written and thought-provoking read.

Inside Job
Inside job is the real life reflections of Rebecca Myers who started her career as a forensic psychologist at the age of 22. In a prison full of murderers, rapists and chauvinistic staff. Rebecca is sent to undertake training to deliver the SOTP sexual offenders treatment programme. Before she knows is she is back in the prison, providing a group session to help the men see, accept, admit and understand their offending. I enjoy true crime, I like a thriller, but this is something else. A lot of it was hard to read, as a Mum, hearing the stories of the men on the SOTP. Their life histories, what led them to offend, their excuses for what they did. It was a hard hitting book. I don’t watch Coronation Street but I’m pretty sure if I did - I’d be checking behind the sofa after hearing the theme tune!

This is a fascinating memoir about the author's experience of working as psychologist in a category A men's prison. Much of it focuses on her work with a group of men, all of whom are convicted sex offenders, as she helps them explore their crimes and the reasons behind them.
It is an interesting and thought-provoking read. Some parts are difficult to read, especially where it goes into the detail of some of the men's crimes but it is interesting to explore some of the factors that lead people to commit these acts as well as how they can be rehabilitated.
I appreciated the author's honesty about some of her own struggles too.

An interesting, yet harrowing, read.

This book details the first job that Rebecca Myers had after graduating with her Psychology degree. Rebecca starts working in a prison as a prison psychologist. She is young, inexperienced and somewhat naïve but she is good at her job. Following a training program she begins treating groups of prisoners on the Sexual Offenders Therapy Programme (SOTP), a programme which aims to discover why these men committed sexual offences and how they can be prevented from offending in the future. The crimes that these men committed are hideous and detailed fairly closely. It is interesting learning about the men, their crimes and what drove them to offend. Many of the men feel that they are alone but learn that they all have similarities in their thinking and begin to recognise patterns in their behaviour. Rebecca herself comes to learn that she too shares some of the schemas that these men share and that they are just people - people who have done bad things but still people nonetheless.

It was such a fascinating read that I was a bit disappointed that it ended so quickly and I felt that there was so much more that could have been said.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Dr Rebecca Myers recounts her time at a prison with the introduction of the Sex Offenders Treatment Program and this follows the start of her career.
This could be quite triggering and there is a small warning at the start of the book but based on the blurb I would presume the reader understands the subject matter.
An insightful read without jargon and very interesting. Thank you to netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was a very interesting book to read. It was tough to read and upsetting at times due to offences of prisoners being described in detail, so this book definitely needs a few trigger warnings. I spent a lot of time being confused - there’s a lot of different prisoners being talked about at the same time, and it was really hard for me to remember who was who. I think it would have been easier if the chapters were split into parts for each inmate, or they were talked about separately. But talking about all of them at the same time made it very confusing. At times it also felt like I was reading a fiction book, because the way settings and the author’s life was described, it made me feel like I was reading a fictional book. This also made it a bit confusing because just as I was becoming focused on the meetings with the prisoners, it would change to talking about the author’s personal relationships - and the way it was described and talked about just didn’t fit well into a non-fiction book. I would recommend this one, as it’s easy to read as there’s not too many medical terms or explanations, so it’s very easy to understand even though I have never studied psychology.

Gripped me from the first page, I was walking into the prison with her and stayed until the end. Very well written and very interesting insight to the job.

A disturbing but fascinating read. Dr Rebecca Myers writes about her time as a psychologist at a prison treating sex offenders/murderers. There were moments when I thought I'd have to stop reading because some of the crimes described were so horrifying but the writing style is compelling and the treatment programme Myers was involved in was very interesting. Dr Myers honesty about her own personal demons was refreshing, as was the account of how her work affected her personal life.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in how prisoners are treated and in criminal psychology.

I loved this book, it's a true insight into the role of a psychologist within a prison system that,in my opinion,could do so much more for prisoners. The attention to detail was sometimes unsettling to read but necessary to get a true understanding of the work that goes into helping convicts understand their actions. Learning how past experiences in their early life helped to shape their future actions was so interesting and as someone who works with young children and has shown some training into how early childhood experiences has an impact on them as they grow older I found it fascinating.
The author doesn't hold back on how difficult the jobs are for all who work in the prison service and left me with a greater understanding of what happens behind bars.
A fantastic if difficult at times read which I shouldn't put down,totally recommend it.

Many thanks to the author, NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read and review this book.

I have read a few books of this ilk and looked forward to reading this new insight to the workings of a prison and it's inmates.

It began with an explanation of who the author was and what her new employment would entail, along with detailed insights to her degree. She was dealing with rapists who had murdered their victims and was fairly interesting reading for the first 33% of her book.

After this I struggled through and really couldn't see what the point was of writing this book, other than the author having some erotic fantasy she wanted to put on paper! A great deal of the book was a little too far fetched to be a proper description of her daily (and nightly) doings!!

I did not enjoy this book and feel, as I stated before, this book is not to be taken too seriously and she certainly is not a good ambassador for a prison phycologist! Can only give 2 stars for effort, apologies to the author.

Psychologist Dr Rebecca Myers experience of working at HMP Graymoor is an honest, insightful, disturbing and a challenging read, she in unsparing in the details she provides of her personal life and the mistakes she makes. Graymoor, a Category A prison, is one of the UK’s most notorious prisons, with its population of nearly 800 murderers, rapists and child molesters. Myers has just graduated when she reports for her first shift, she is 22 and about to sit down with some of the country’s most dangerous criminals. She has always wanted to work with male prisoners in a maximum security prison, but unsurprisingly, given the tough environment, being so young with so little life experience, she has a hard time. Myers has a problem with blushing, is apprehensive, is terrified of being left alone with the prisoner group and suffers from imposter syndrome. We follow her progress as she learns to adapt to her new circumstances and develop in her professional career.

Myers is to implement a groundbreaking course, the CBT based Sexual Offenders Training Programme (SOTP), with its laudable aims of rehabilitating and reducing sexual offending by changing the mindset and behaviours of the emotionally damaged men perpetrating such heinous crimes. With prison officers to help facilitate, she manages a group of six men, some Category A (high risk), including murderers and psychopaths. She tries to get the men to gain new and more truthful perspectives on their crimes, difficult when some are in denial, included are details of their backgrounds and their lives, how they came to commit the crime, with the terrifying and more ambiguous elements of the course, such as role playing the actual crimes themselves. Neither Myers or her co-facilitators, the prison officers, are left untouched by the intense darkness of the forensic details of the horrors they become privy to, only able to communicate with each other and other professionals in the prison. It messes with their heads, how they look at people in the outside world, giving them nightmares, whilst contaminating and wreaking havoc in their personal lives.

I was truly impressed with the changes the programme made in many of the men in the group, true the results were not the same across the board, and as illustrated with the likes of Kyle, some made little progress. It was inspiring to see Myers compassion and humanity as she develops relationships with the men that resulted in trust and friendships, and to see her wisdom in perceiving that there were many ways in which she was just like the men who are so often vilified and ostracised. Many readers will not be surprised to learn of the horrors of many prisoners backgrounds, including sexual abuse and violence. Myers concludes with reporting the state of the SOTP programme and the problems it faced, and highlighting some of the changes and modifications. This is an eye opening and informative read about the dangerous men behind bars and a psychologist's courageous efforts in trying changing their behaviour and reducing sexual offending for the future. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Inside Job is a hard read - at times I had to put the book down as reading about child molesters/rapists was hard to comprehend - especially when their crimes were so intricately detailed on the pages.

Myers describes her journey from being a young psychologist working in a maximum security prison with murderers, rapists, and peadophiles where she fell for a fellow prison officer to moving through the ranks to eventually training new psychology recruits.

The book is a heavy read, there are graphic scenes which unfortunately left indelible marks in my memory - however, it is wonderfully written - very honest and at times intriguing.

The cover and synopsis of this book was what originally drew me in. I am an avid reader of true life books. The book follows the journey of a group of offenders through there SOTP therapy delivered by Rebecca. I thoroughly enjoyed the personal touches as I learnt about aspects of her life and how her job affected her. I felt like I got to know the characters personally and was alongside them as they went through their therapy and gradually understanding why they committed their offences. This book can be very upsetting to read when the incidents are explained and I hope all the men involved have benefited from SOTP and have not reoffended. If you enjoy real life gritty reads then this book is for you.