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  • Australia's Toughest Prisons: Inmates

  • By: James Phelps
  • Narrated by: Stan Pretty
  • Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (161 ratings)

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Australia's Toughest Prisons: Inmates

By: James Phelps
Narrated by: Stan Pretty
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Publisher's Summary

Award-winning author and journalist James Phelps profiles Australia's most notorious criminals: these are true accounts of Australia's hardest inmates, in their own words.

From Martin Bryant, perpetrator of our country's worst massacre at Port Arthur 20 years ago, to alleged hit man and undisputed hard man 'Goldie', feared by both prisoners and guards alike, Phelps tracks the rise of ISIS gangs, the lethal underground drug and tobacco trade and the threat of contraband phones. From the shiv fights and brawls to the white-collar criminal beat downs, this is an account like never before.

©2016 James Phelps (P)2016 W.F. Howes Ltd

What listeners say about Australia's Toughest Prisons: Inmates

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Lots of “filler”, quickly turned into a political opinion piece

The book started out quite good, but then things started to go wrong.
The author appears to either have some kind of obsession with the so called civil liberties of convicted Islamic terrorist prisoners, or he just found it convenient to “fill” chapter after chapter with an incredibly lengthy letter he decides to include in the book which was entirely penned by someone else, likely a left wing prisoners rights group (as a Greens senator was mentioned), or by civil liberties lawyers of some kind. Which details how hard life is for them in prison.
This literally goes on for hours, and isn’t even his writing.
Imagine someone writing a novel on Queen Elizabeth, only to mention in the Story that she picks up a book of Alice in Wonderland, and then the book proceeds to narrate word for word the Alice in Wonderland book within the story. It’s that bad.
Just when that was finished, he decides to include Word for Word, some Jail handbook as well and that’s when I bowed out.
Seriously this is just full of filler and a desperate grab for cash.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting...poor narrative

James Phelps book is gives a great insight into Australian prison life. However the mono tone narration given by Stan Pretty is painful. Cockney accents given to white Australian prisoners while Aboriginal and Middle eastern share the same accents....what is going on here

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Incredibly insightful listen!

The book itself is incredibly informative. The reading? Not great. The narrator seemed to feel the need to put a british, cockney accent on when voicing in-mates/ex in-mates, as well as slowing his speech down in what I can only assume was an attempt to sound stupid, and thus, more 'criminal'.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

lol wtf

the narrator is absolutely terrible I've not heard such a badly narrated audiobook. the accents he tries are ridiculous. don't recommend at all. one minute he's giving characters accents then next minute he's back to his normal voice . and Lebanese don't sound scottish

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Great Listen!!

What did you like most about Australia's Toughest Prisons: Inmates?

The narration was great and the selection of Inmates documented and how they were documented was great too!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Australia's Toughest Prisons: Inmates?

Definitely the update of Martin Bryant's life these days! LOL

Which scene did you most enjoy?

There are so many great scenes in this book! The milk carton walk of shame is a good one but so are many others! Actually, not many, ALL!

Any additional comments?

absolutely loved this book and am downloading James Phelps' other book for listening tomorrow :D

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Uninteresting and not enjoy

Sorry but I didn't enjoy this book at all. It was quite boring and the narration was ordinary.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Sam
  • 19-02-2017

Good but...

No mention of Qld jails. The narrator also sounded like he had a stroke and was speaking very slowly like he was in fact stupid.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Awful

The narrator’s stupid cockney accent drove me crazy…
Couldn’t finish it!
Unnecessary swearing with the ridiculous accent was just terrible

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The narrator is an absolute punish

The narrator made this almost unlistenable. Please fire him immediately. The narrator made this almost unlistenable. Please fire him immediately.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Written in a hurry?

There are some interesting facts or claims about the prison system which could have been better explained. Then again so much ‘fillers’ (repetitive or adding little to no value).

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.