If you think jails are too soft and full of hardened criminals, read this and think again

‘We don’t have any spare bread, but prisons are rife with drugs.’ Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

I began my career as a prison officer at a high-security men’s establishment, working with prisoners serving sentences ranging from 25 years to natural life. From there I transferred to a busy London prison housing short-termers, lifers and everything in between, before returning to the high-security estate.

After a decade in the job, I’m used to the different ways people talk about prisons and the people inside. Holiday camps one day, hell on earth the next.