Before I went to prison a friend who'd already been gave me a few pointers and tips, what to take, what to expect and what a few of the hundreds of unintelligible acronyms mean. This helped me hit the ground running and made my time a whole lot easier.

This practical and up-to-date guide is designed to do the same for anyone who is expecting to go to prison or is currently serving a sentence. It's totally free and available in both hard copy and digital formats.

Rather than being a dowdy government guide this is an unrefined, truthful and personal account written by someone who has just been released from serving nearly a year in some of Britain's most notorious jails.

Please share this with as many people as possible; blog it, tweet it, plagiarise it, please help get it out there as it might be the information that someone needs in a time that has the potential to be the hardest in their life so far.

To read online with a decent connection click here

For a slower connection or to download a PDF copy click here

For a free zine copy send a self addressed envelope to 56a Infoshop, 56a Crampton Street, London SE17 3AE

To send a copy to someone who's already in prison send their name, prison number and what prison they're in to prisonism@gmail.com

To join the Facebook group click here or search for HMP - A Survival Guide

For press enquiries, requests, queries, suggestions and anything else please email prisonism@gmail.com

This website is in development; a comments page, further reading section and useful links section will be online as soon as I work out how.