Whilst her friends left university to follow careers in business and law, Gen Glaister had been set on becoming a prison officer since she was 15. At 23, she got her keys to one of London’s largest men's jails, where she spent her days with gang members, sex-offenders, undocumented migrants, and just about everyone in between.
Struck by the disparity between the characters she met inside and the two-dimensional villains she saw in the news, and driven by hours spent at the kitchen tables of the despairing mothers of her clients, she set out to write a book which not only challenged perceptions on men in prison but actually brought these men into the realms of familiarity and even affection for the reader. Her book will be published in 2024 by a major UK publisher.