Detention (A Rookie Teacher. The Toughest Prison School in Australia.)

A powerful and moving memoir about how the youth detention system is failing some of Australia's most vulnerable children—and how one rookie teacher fought for them. Explosive, heartbreaking, and inspiring.

'Honest and courageous... This book is the report card we've all known was coming.' — Gabbie Stroud, bestselling author of Teacher

What happens when your first teaching job isn't in a classroom—but inside a youth detention center?

When Ralph Jackman traded his career as a sports reporter for life as a teacher, he expected playground duty and parent-teacher conferences. Instead, he found himself behind the razor wire of Melbourne's Parkville Youth Detention Centre, teaching literacy and numeracy to some of Australia's most vulnerable and deeply traumatized boys.

In this raw and compelling memoir, Jackman takes readers inside a world few educators ever experience. By turns shocking, heartbreaking, humorous, and deeply hopeful, Detention reveals the small moments of trust and connection that remind us why teaching matters.

But this is more than one teacher's story. It is an unflinching account of a system that is failing the children who need it most—and of one educator who refused to look away.

Detention is both a powerful memoir and an urgent call to action for anyone who believes every child deserves an education, even behind bars.

'A compelling account by a real insider of how Australia is failing some of its most vulnerable kids by locking them up. Jackman emerges not just as a teacher with real heart but as a fine storyteller. His passion and principles drive this exposé and urgent call for change.' — Nick McKenzie, Gold Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist, The Age