As I approached the enormous metal gate, I didn't quite know what to expect. This place had one hell of a reputation. HMP Natum was one of the most feared of the new generation of private prisons. The governor supposedly liked to mentally break down the inmates before building them back up again. I'd heard stories of defendants begging judges not to be sent there. The odd thing was, though, none of my colleagues had ever found anything that would even remotely justify the terror it inspired.
Over the last couple of years, all the volunteers that went in had come back reporting that it was just a regular prison, albeit one with unusually high behaviour standard among the prisoners. I'd been a volunteer prison inspector for the monitoring board for a couple of years but this was my first visit to Natum.
Inspection visits to prisons are made unannounced and volunteers have the authority to demand access to any part of the building so the prison authorities could make preparations to cover up any irregular practices. Still, it didn't seem right that hardened criminals who'd been through the system throughout their lives were reduced to quivering wrecks at the thought of being sent to Natum. As far as I was concerned, I would spend as much time as I needed to find out what really happened within those walls.
