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The Lost Boyz
At age 14, author Justin Rollins went from being a bullied child to the leader of The Warriorz, a group of London street kids involved in graffiti tagging and other crimes, including a series of violent encounters. Eventually given a substantial custodial sentence for an attack with a meat cleaver in the London Underground, Rollins became determined to steer other young people away from such a life. The Lost Boyz tells the story of Rollins' descent into a form of madness, in which self-destruction, anger, wanton behavior, and fear reside at the core. Never has a book taken the reader so far inside the minds of troubled youths who gradually realize that there is no easy escape from their chaotic lifestyle. Their need - to gain respect from and stay credible with each other - stems from offending, alienation, living on the margins of society, and crazy behavior, all of which serve as barriers to rejoining the normal world and going straight. The book contains countless lessons for young
Mental Me
Justin Rollins’ acclaimed The Lost Boyz traced the author’s early life on the streets. Ten years on, this new book describes how he did time in adult prisons and experienced other challenges including trauma, associated fears, flashbacks and fixations. It traces the origins of his anxiety, obsessive compulsive behaviour, complex post-traumatic stress and other life-limiting conditions. It tells of the violence and abuse in his past and explains how this drove many of his actions. Fast paced and readable as any novel, the book describes how the author overcame ‘locked-in’ thinking and a violent lifestyle to become not just law-abiding but an acknowledged expert on street crime, gangs,...
Street Crhymes
Justin Rollins has a remarkable ability. His poems emerge not from agonising over a blank sheet of paper, but in rap-like fashion, in full-flow and in their complete form. This collection takes the reader on a journey on which those familiar with his autobiographical The Lost Boyz will recognise the landmarks as the streets and characters of his native south-London once again spring into life. But this is fresh and captivating work. It deals with the everyday effects of disadvantage, the tensions of wealth and poverty, freedom and incarceration with glimpses of a sometimes dark past, motivational now and uncertain though optimistic future. What registers strongly is Rollins eye for detail, injustice, the telling remark, the eccentric, the absurd, clandestine places and parallel realities. Much of this is driven by his years living on the streets chasing excitement to compensate for the lack of things that come through a conventional upbringing. The result is a raw journey captured in snapshots of survival, crime, pain and the authors travels on the Northern Line.
Call Me Auntie
A truly original story of life in and after care. A unique account of trans-racial fostering which focuses on identity, family history and loss. Call Me Auntie adds to the literature of post-Windrush 1950s Britain and tells of ‘Heartbreak House’ care homes. The author’s account of being abandoned by her mother as a young child and her life in homes and institutions will captivate any reader. The mystery of her search for her mother and constant rejections will leave the reader wondering what demons drove her to be so elusive. “Call Me Auntie” was the best her mother could offer but this was just the start of a bizarre sequence of events. After discovering she had a brother and look...
Prison Writing
A collection of writing by people in prison and connected to prisons: creative and challenging - one of two special Waterside Press editions. 'A remarkable anthology which will interest everyone concerned with the fate of prisoners and anxious to see their conditions improved': Michael McMullan, Justice of the Peace. 'This fascinating and very readable collection of fact, fiction and verse is the fifteenth issue edited and produced by two probation officers from Sheffield. We are fortunate that they have found a new publisher in Waterside Press to continue giving prisoners (and others), an opportunity to do something wich all writers crave - find an audience to communicate their feelings and experiences... The contributors give deeply personal insights into the nature of their world and prove that imagination and talent are incapable of being destroyed if people are ready to develop them... This anthology deserves to be read... by everyone who is interested in new writers experimenting with the development of their talent. Each piece is different and compelling: David Underhill, The Magistrate.
Labelled a Black Villain
Heavily featured in the media when it first appeared, Trevor Hercules has now updated and added to a work that led to his involvement challenging Government ministers and MPs on youth and black crime. Part biography, part critique of the system, part innovative proposals, this book is essential reading at a time of gun, knife and gang crime. Heavily influenced by the author’s thoughts on how a mindset is created in all deprived communities in which ambition, employment, opportunity and advancement are thought impossible — something bound up with the advantages of the few (and where black people are concerned the shadow of the UK’s colonial past) — he guides readers along the pathways...
In Place of Rage and Violence
'Heavy-end' prisoners communicate their thoughts, experiences and feelings in their own words in a unique collection amassed by the editor during his two year stint at Welford Road. Tim Reeves was Writer in Residence at HM Prison Leicester from 2002 to 2004, funded by the Arts Council. He also teaches creative writing at the University of Warwick and his novel The Escape Artists was shortlisted for the 2004 Lichfield Prize.
Your Honour Can I Tell You My Story?
The challenging story of a young person’s progress through care, prison and social rejection to youth justice specialist. It charts failures to connect with and modify the author’s chaotic early life moving from place to place, school to school, fragmented parenting and poor role models. Encircled by crime, drugs and baffling adults, Andi Brierley ended up first in a young offender institution then prison where he learned to think like a prisoner for his own survival, making everything harder for everybody on release. Until he determined to change and others saw his unenviable past could be put to good use. Shows how small things can make a difference. Contains many insights for professi...
The Idiot Boy
Bob Turney must be the first ‘dunce’—and from the wrong side of the tracks—to win a debate at the Oxford Union, to have addressed assembly at Eton College, been welcomed as a guest at No. 10 Downing Street, dined at the House of Lords and whose existing writings are in regular use at universities in the UK and abroad. In this captivating and very readable book Bob tells how he overcame multiple disadvantages: dyslexia, being wrongly categorised as educationally subnormal, drug and alcohol misuse and 20 years on-and-off as a guest of Her Majesty. It is a compelling true story of how against all the odds he survived trauma, misfortune and life ‘in the gutter’ to become a much respected family man, community leader, friend of the great and the good, commentator and public speaker: a prisoner reborn as a probation officer whose new world took on a fresh and unique life of its own. 'I know Bob Turney, and I know his work, I have witnessed him hold an audience, spellbound': Dr Deborah Cheney. 'Bob Turney is a true champion of human rights in the penal system': Baroness Helena Kennedy QC. 'A remarkable man who made a great recovery from the depths': Lord Longford.
The Jasmine Project
Jenny Han meets The Bachelorette in this “sparkling, witty, warm-hearted gem” (Karen M. McManus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying) of a romantic comedy about a teen Korean American adoptee who unwittingly finds herself at the center of a competition for her heart, as orchestrated by her overbearing, loving family. Jasmine Yap’s life is great. Well, it’s okay. She’s about to move in with her long-time boyfriend, Paul, before starting a nursing program at community college—all of which she mostly wants. But her stable world is turned upside down when she catches Paul cheating. To her giant, overprotective family, Paul’s loss is their golden ticket to sho...
