Profile wins auction for 'compelling' UK prison system investigation

Profile Books has won a six-way auction to publish former probation officer Eleanor Fellowes’ investigation into the UK’s prison system. 

Profile editor Louisa Dunnigan bought UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) to In Harm’s Way from Jane Finigan at Lutyens and Rubinstein. The book will be published in spring 2021.

Profile said the "compelling and important investigation" will draw upon Fellowes' experience of years working in the probation service, and then at HMP Wandsworth. 

“She will take the reader on the same path trodden by the majority of people sent to prison: from court, to custody and eventual release," said the publisher. “Within these stages we will explore the history of the architecture, the motivations of our courts, the aims of policy, the workings of standard regimes and high security establishments, and meet the individuals who work and reside within them.”

Fellowes joined the probation service aged 23, in 2008. Five years later she was seconded to prison where she worked for two years. She now acts as a teacher and consultant  to prison, probation and forensic mental health staff, specialising in psychoanalytic approaches to violence, trauma and organisational health.